Sailor Moon Chronicles
by Captiosus
Summary: These are the events recorded 1000 years after Crystal Tokyo has been established and earth has become a nexus of power in the Galaxy. But the Negaverse has returned, and a new warrior will rise to challenge them, and the outcome will change Earth forever
1. Prologue and Episode 1 Part 1: Arrival

Sailor Moon Chronicles

Fanfic by Captiosus

-Prologue and Episode 1 Part 1-

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Foreword from yours truly: Due to a hardware malfunction when I originally posted my stories, I am reposting them all in the way the website wishes them posted since I do not want my account disabled. There are a few changes to the storyline, as well as a increased number of details. I accept criticism, but be careful with the flames. I will post a new segment roughly once every two weeks.If you want to tell me something, go tell me in my forums on this site. Also, all names, places, objects and/or any other thing mentioned in this fanfic is either from the original Sailor Moon series or something which I have whipped up. So lean back, strap yourselves in, and prepare for one hell of a wild story!!

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(A massive explosion is heard)

"Sir! We just lost the primary reactor pod! We don't have enough power to maintain orbit!"

"Primary weapons are offline. There is no way to fire the ship to ship weapons."

(Another explosion rocks the bridge of the starship.)

"What the hell was that!?" yelled the captain of the ship, pulling himself to his feet as he did so. He was pale from sheer shock. No one had expected the Negafleet to attack with such force and in such vast numbers.

An orderly turned and said, "That was an antimatter charge! They are trying to board us!" The captain rolled his eyes and activated his comlink, pinging the 5 mile long cruiser's com network.

"Attention all hands. Get to the lifeboats before we are overrun by boarding parties. We are being boarded. Repeat, we are being boarded. All fireteams, repel the boarding parties until everyone is away."

The captain sighed, knowing that his ship was doomed. He looked around the bridge and watched as everyone left the deck. A few moments later, a long series of thumps issued from the lower hull, and the captain watched as 20,000 escape pods screamed towards Crystal Tokyo. He got behind the helm of the massive cruiser and banked it to follow them, but he didn't get far. A pair of dreadnoughts (heavy assault craft) got in the way and opened fire, pounding flat the remaining shields. But they couldn't stop several billion tons of metal on a one way course with Earth's surface.

The huge ship slammed into the upper atmosphere with the force of a Solar Cannon shot, the cratered hull quickly building into a white hot mass of metal. The wings, the only control the cruiser had, began to tilt and warp, keeping the ship under control as the intense heat began to melt the hull. Shortly after the re-entry point, a short transmission came up from the surface.

"Captain, you better have a good explanation why 15,000 escape pods jut bombarded Crystal Tokyo and why Mercury says that the Phoenix is on a collision course with the city! Give me your explanation NOW!"

The captain sighed, and did something that he never did before. He leaned over to the com station and flipped the switch that shut down the antennas. But before he did, he sent back, "I have left a targeting beacon in orbit. Lock on to it, and blast it with a Solar Cannon shot. The beacon contains a 10 gigaton nuclear warhead. The blast will vaporize every enemy ship up there. As for me, I will try to miss Japan and park this wreck in the Pacific."

The huge ship was now a almost complete wreck, the only thing keeping it from flying out of control is the 4 remaining wings at the stern of the ship. But these were also ready to shear away from the ship in the thickening atmosphere. The ship groaned and shrieked from the stress as the ship began its 90 degree turn that would put its bulk in the North Pacific Ocean. The captain programmed the autopilot to keep the ship on course and made his way to the upper fighter bay, where his Lightningstrike Starfigher waited behind a powerful force field. The ship rolled to the left and to the right as the starboard stern wing ripped free, a chunk of metal 700 feet long. The captain made it to the bay only to find that the force field had collapsed, turning the bay into a 5000 degree furnace, incinerating the unshielded fighter. The captain swore, knowing that there was only one other way off the cruiser, a orbital drop pod. And at the current velocity, the pod's parachute would tear free. The captain made his way down to the drop bay, not realizing the ship was out of its ion storm. He opened the hatch to the drop bay and was greeted by a blast of warm air. He peered out of the holes in the hull from the drop tubes and saw the Pacific Ocean speeding by, 50,000 feet below. He jumped into the last pod and primed the firing mechanisms and sent the pod, with him inside, to a watery impact. But the ship had other ideas. With an earsplitting shriek, the remaining wings tore away, and the 5 mile long wreck was out of control.

The pod was shot out of the bay and was almost immediately hammered by the hull of the Phoenix as the ship rolled out of control. The pod's chute was immediately ripped off the top and the pod itself was tossed away from the ship at 400 miles per hour. The captain screamed as the pod rocketed towards a watery impact. He knew that the water would kill him instantly, but he screamed until impact.

(A massive explosion is heard)

The Commander of the _Phoenix_, Captain Richard Perez, woke up drenched in sweat and breathing hard. The dream had haunted him for the past month, and it scared him. He didn't want his ship and his life to end so suddenly, and for good reason. It had been 5000 years since he last saw Earth and the other planets and he was curious on how things had changed in the time during his exploration of the galaxy. But for the moment, he got out of his bed and walked to the large porthole, gazing at the star which was still 2 light-years away. During the last fight, both of its trans-dimensional drives were damaged. The fastest the ship could go on the mighty antimatter/fusion engines was the speed of light.

The ship itself was a marvel of engineering. Hewn from an all metal asteroid, the cruiser was 26,400 feet long, 8976 feet wide (excluding the stern wings), and 8,500 feet high from the bottom of the ship's greenhouse to the top of the reactor pods. The ship had a minimum crew of 20,000 men and women as well as an AI. The engines used a fusion/antimatter hybrid system to provide power. The ship could if needed, be split into two parts, the upper hull and the lower. The upper hull contained the main engines as well as some small weapons. The lower hull, being almost twice as long, had more weapons but less propulsion. Just 2 small reactor pods prevented it from being a large drifting hulk of metal flinging laser bolts and metal slugs into space. The result is the ship could split and become 2 smaller ships, dealing damage out at a massive rate from both sides, pounding the enemy into a pulp. The ship also had another weapon, called the Eclipse Cannon. The Cannon was an energy weapon capable of destroying a star. But the weapon had a catch. The entire ship has to reconfigure to fire it and as soon as it has stopped the beam, the ship was immobile due to the stalled reactors. If the ship can't get the reactors running back online, it would be consumed by onrushing shockwave.

But at the moment, Richard wasn't thinking of the cannon or the engines or the ship itself. He was thinking of getting back to sleep. But he knew this was impossible at the moment. He rose up out of his bunk and began getting dressed. The captain was a big man, towering at 6'3" tall and weighing almost 240 pounds. Most of the extra weight came from the 13 bones that had been replaced by carbon fiber and metal alloy in his right arm. He had dark hair and eyes, and despite 5 millennia of being inside the ship, had a decent tan. His temper was almost legend, and if he got angry at someone, he would use his solar sword and bash them upside the head. When he was in a good mood he was quite likeable, with a quick mouth and a sharp mind, he could always find something to chat about. He also wasn't like most people in positions of power, staying in a seat and speaking to people from afar. His morning routine usually included:

A quick 2 mile jog to the bridge

A run down to Engineering to chat and get a good soak in the heat of the reactors (the saunas were in the engineering compartments due to the reactors putting out massive amounts of excess heat)

And finally, a walk to the bow mess hall to pig out on some food.

While doing this little routine, he would chat with crew members that he met along his 6 mile long route. And while at the mess hall, he would sit among the crew as an equal, someone who didn't want or need the flattery that comes with a position of command. So as a result, most of the men and women under him knew him well and would gladly protect him… not like it is needed. His skill with his sword has left more than one arrogant enemy in ribbons, and he could dish out energy attacks, in the form of flames, with incredible force. The Solar Sword, an ancient weapon of considerable power, enabled the wielder to attack and defend him/herself with the power of the stars, nuclear fusion. The Sword, however, cannot be wielded by any ordinary person, Only someone who is a kind and brave person who is willing to suffer for others can even hold it. But even then, the sword cannot be wielded on the field of battle until the new owner of the sword can defeat the spirit of the last owner in a one on one fight to the death.

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Sailor Pluto was never one really for words. The near absolute zero temperatures of her planet namesake made speaking something of a luxury. She was in her small home near the planet core, the warmest part of the planet, when one of the orderlies in charge of monitoring the outer solar system for anomalies and other events came barging into her room. Pluto didnt turn around as the orderly gave his report.

"Ma'am, there are several massive objects the size of small comets and large asteroids headed for the inner solar system. There are approximately thirty of these objects, each one on a course for our planets, three of which have already settled in orbit around our world. These vessels arent hostile as far as I can tell."

He was about to continue when she put up a hand and said, "Ready the communications array. I need to send a message to the others."

Once her message was off, she charged up some of her power and began to warp to the inner planets. But barely ten seconds after she left the surface, she came to an abrupt halt in one of the ships. Pluto had maybe four seconds to register what had happened before she was knocked out by a flame shaped sword.

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Sailor Jupiter jumped off the massive pillar, dodging the hail of bullets from the 4 men attacking her. She hid behind the pillar thinking of a way to get behind them and blast them with a few well placed bolts of lightning. A blast blew her and the pillar 30 feet away, dangerously close to a long fall to the planet core. She rolled over and proceeded to unleash the full fury of the Planet that she called home. 4 huge bolts dropped from the clouds and blew the 4 men off the sparring platform. A cheer went up from the spectators who were there to watch Jupiter practice her fighting skills. As she walked off the platform to go take a shower, the received a telepathic message from Sailor Uranus. The message included a quick description of what was going on, the ships themselves, and where they were headed. As she mentally listened to this she realized this was potentially the first major threat the inner planets have faced in a long time. She realized that it was time to return to Earth and prepare to confront this threat. But as she looked up and saw the monster ship performing a slingshot orbit, she knew it was going to take all the Scouts to blast it back where it came from.

The huge ship was long but sleek looking. The eight engines at the back glowed a deep blue hue and the visible ion trail was thousands of miles long. It had four pairs of wings, one pair a short distance from the three bow prongs, two more pairs near the middle, and the largest pair near the reactor pods. From her viewpoint the bridge, put above the middle pairs of wings, looked like a head , with narrow eyes and a long jagged window that was obviously the main deck. If anything, the huge vessels looked like some wierdly shaped birds, for there were several more of these ships following the bigger one

. As Jupiter began her trip she fired off a message to the inner planets, telling them everything. But the huge ship locked on to the signal, spun around and charged forward. Jupiter tried to dodge the ship but it was soon on top of her and a bright beam grabbed her. She sent a huge bolt of lightning streaking towards the hull but the energy shields absorbed the bolt without harm to the hull. Jupiter continued firing off attacks as the ship pulled her into a small cargo bay. A force field flared to life over the bay's opening, allowing an atmosphere to be sustained in the bay. Jupiter was paranoid by this point, but also curious. Why capture her but not kill her? She looked for a door to get out of the bay but before she could a huge bolt of fire slammed into her back, knocking her out. Her last thought was that the occupants of he ship she was on and the other vessels were hostile.

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Sailor Mars was on Earth when the ship finally showed up. It was so large that as it was crossing the line into dusk, the sunlight could be seen bouncing off the parts of the hull that weren't charred. As Mars watched, the huge ship turned around and fired its engines to drop into low earth orbit. As Mars watched all of this, Sailor Mercury walked up next to her, Visor and minicomputer already out and scanning.

"What is it?" asked Mars, still watching the huge ship as it began to extend solar panels. The minicomputer beeped a few more times before Mercury replied, "It has a mass of a small asteroid. It uses a fusion antimatter engine system for propulsion and is emitting an energy barrier. High amounts of infrared light indicate there are life forms on board. And it is at least several miles long. My guess? A starship carrying sentient beings."

"Do you think they are hostile?"

"More details indicate there are weapons but they aren't ready to fire."

Mars was about to reply when a trio of beeps from the computer indicated an incoming message. Mercury accepted the transmission and ran it through her minicomputer's speakers. For several seconds, there was nothing. A voice cracked through, heavily distorted, but it was still intelligible. And unmistakably, it was speaking in clear English.

"This is the starship _Phoenix_ of the Solar Fleet. If anyone is listening, please respond on any available frequencies. Our hull is heavily damaged, we have little supplies, and 2 female humans have been trying to destroy my ship. If anyone is down there, please respond…"

Mercury looked at Mars, who was looking at the massive ship with a look of apprehension on her face. Mars, being someone who is cautious when preparing to attack a fairly large enemy. She paused for a moment, and then said, "I think we should respond. After all, it sounds like he has two of the scouts onboard. And besides, if something that big wanted to waste Crystal Tokyo, not even the Queen could stop it."

Mercury nodded, knowing whoever was in the ship, now preparing to drop below the horizon, was peaceful as long as they were. She opened a channel to the ship, bouncing it off one of the comsats that were in orbit over the Pacific.

"This is Sailor Mercury of the Solar Kingdom. We hear you and we are willing to help with your repairs and resupply. But might I ask who you have captured?"

The voice responded, "We have captured 2 human females. One goes by the name of Pluto. The other goes by the name of Jupiter. Ever since we showed up in the inner solar system, they have been hammering the walls of the cargo bay they are in with temporal and lightning based attacks. Any suggestion as to handle them?"

Mars's eyebrows shot up. This didn't sound good at all. But if the being in the ship wished to reason with them, then so be it. The response was short and to the point.

"We wish that you kindly put those two on the planet surface. They mean you no harm."

"Well I think they mean me harm. I DID knock them out in order to subdue them. And besides, Jupiter has challenged me to a one on one brawl, and I have yet to accept. If you want them back, I will send them down in a dropship on the next orbital pass over your current position. Just bounce a red, low power laser off our hull and they will be on the ground in 20 minutes."

Both of the scouts were suspicious though. A person who has someone captive doesn't just give up his captives like that. Something was up, and it didn't sound like he was just going to drop the scouts off and be on his way. He wanted something. And from the size of the ship, he could get it.

But before the scouts could make a choice and tell the Crystal Nucleus what was going on, a mayday came over the com channel.

"Mayday Mayday! This is the Starship Phoenix on all frequencies. An unknown, potentially hostile force has attacked my ship and pushed us out of orbit. Our current course is going to put us on the East coast of the islands off the main Continent. We are entering the atmosphere at a high speed and will hit the ground at approximately 4,000 miles an hour. Impact will throw up massive amounts of dirt and contaminated metal."

Mars and Mercury, both having dealt with many things before, knew exactly what shoved the huge ship into the atmosphere.

The Negaverse.


	2. Episode 1 part 2: Arrival

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic By Captiosus

Episode 1 Part 2

"Just bounce a red, low power laser off our hull and they will be on the ground in 20 minutes."

The T.O. looked at the captain and mouthed, "20 minutes?!" The captain was about to say something back when the officer on the sensor arrays shouted, "Contact off the starboard bow! Its profile isn't in our database, and it is emitting high amounts of an unidentifiable energy. It may be hostile."

Richard stood up and told the scan officer to put it on the main screen. What popped up stunned him. It was a ship, but not like anything he has seen before. It was long, roughly 600-700 feet long. It had several projections along its length, all of them made of the same dark crystalline substance that the main hull of the vessel was made of. There was no visible command center. The bow of the vessel also let off a deep purple glow.

The captain was about to ask for a more detailed scan when the glow at the vessel's bow intensified, elongated and pounded into the ship's upper starboard reactor pod, passing right through the shields like they weren't up. The resulting fireball blew the Phoenix right out of orbit.

"Status report!" Richard roared. He was stunned that such a small vessel packed such a punch. As he climbed back into his seat behind the main console, the status report came back from the environmental officer. The report wasn't good. Along with the initial damage to the number 2 reactor pod, the third, first, and fourth pods were knocked offline from the blast, leaving just the number 5 and six pods to push the entire ship, which at this point, wasn't going to cut it. As the captain watched the crystal vessel shoot his ship on a replay, he noticed that it had a crucial weakness. Problem was, the Phoenix was now well in the upper atmosphere. He decided to fire off a mayday before the ion cloud formed from the ship entering the atmosphere got too bad.

"Mayday Mayday! This is the Starship _Phoenix _on all frequencies. An unknown hostile force has attacked my ship and pushed us out of orbit. Our current course is going to put us on the East coast of the islands off the main Continent. We are entering the atmosphere at a high speed and will hit the ground at approximately 4,000 miles an hour. Impact will throw up massive amounts of dirt and contaminated metal."

As the huge ship entered the atmosphere, the hull began to groan and flex from the intense heat, which the heat on the leading edges began to cause it to glow from the fury of the flames. As it plunged deeper into the atmosphere, the hull finally began to glow.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Sailor Mini Moon was at the top of the spire in the middle of the city when she saw the dull red glow of the ship entering the atmosphere. She stared at it for a moment and watched the glow intensify into a blazing white, and as she watched, she could see little chunks of the ship break off. Thinking it was a meteor, she went to the Royal Apartment just below her perch. As she entered her dad turned around and said, "Rini! What brings you up here? Aren't you supposed to be on the lower levels tending to your younger sister and the next generation of Scouts?"

Before she could answer, Mars and Mercury both entered the room at the same time. Mercury wheezed from running the eight miles from the oceanside bluff to the Nucleus, and Mars was in worse shape. Both pointed to the window when Darien gave them a questioning look. He walked over to the huge window just in time to see a blazing fireball 60 miles south of the city slam into the water with incredible force, sliding towards him at better than a thousand miles an hour.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

"Captain, there is a city dead ahead!"

The captain was shocked. Getting blown out of orbit was bad enough, but the potential loss of life on a large scale was even worse. He immediately began firing off orders that would attempt to save the city from the 4 billion tons of death on its way towards the city.

"Contact the ground. Tell them we are on a collision course with the city and we are too close to execute a turn to miss it. Rotate all auxiliary engines at a 45 degree angle facing up and forward. Once they are all in position, fire them at full throttle on my mark. Also, shut down the main engines and divert the freed energy towards the forward and lower shields. Open all outer hatches, extend the landing feet, tilt the wings down at a thirty degree angle to force us deeper into the ground."

With a screech the landing feet extended into the water, and for a moment the ship nearly flipped over onto its back. But it didnt happen, and the ship continued it's high speed slide towards the city, and to the thirty million people who lived there.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

By this point everyone in the city saw the massive vessel come tearing up the southern end of the city, flinging dirt and bits of itself as it went. The people watched as the queen and all the scouts formed a line and fired a collective energy pulse at the ship. As the beam hit the bow of the ship, it noticeably slowed down, so much that the aft hull lifted off the ground. But the fast moving ship would not be denied. As the vessel approached the line of scouts, they scattered, getting out of the way just as the ship blew between the two groups. As it blew by, 6 massive plumes of fire erupted from the ship, shoving it deeper into the ground and slowing it even further. But this move came too late. The huge ship slammed into the line of crystal structures at the southern edge of the city, shoving them into the air and out of the ship's path. By this point the cruiser was moving at 65 mph and rapidly slowing down. Ahead of it loomed the Crystal Nucleus's central spire. The ship continued to bash structures out of its way but it has almost no energy left to do it. With a shriek, the bow wings ripped themselves free and were promptly buried in the debris from the slide. As the ship approached the tower, the three bow prongs opened like the maw of some beast, ready to consume the tower. But this wasn't going to happen. The ship did hit the tower alright, but it tapped it with a resounding thud. The base of the structure cracked and groaned, and the mighty tower tilted about ten feet off of the straight vertical. Then finally, with a loud whine, the ship came to a stop at the end of its 60 mile long trail of destruction.

Xxxxxxxxxx

"….Have we stopped?" one of the bridge officers asked. The lights were out and there was a distinct creaking from the hot hull settling down and cooling. The AI appeared on the holographic projector, looking out of breath. He glanced around the darkened bridge and said, "Boy are you all lucky this thing didn't plow through the entire city."

The captain got up and walked to the closed windscreen. He pressed the open button and was surprised to see several vehicles floating outside the ship, many with cameras. He snorted, knowing that even 5000 years later, the media hadn't changed one bit. He glanced at the reactor output and was dismayed to see that every reactor, including the fusion reactors, were offline. He swore, knowing that he was trapped on Earth. He fired up the ship's PA system and said, "This is the Captain speaking. The good news is, we survived our ride through the atmosphere. The bad news is, all our power is offline, and that means just about every aspect of this ship is offline as well. I suggest we head out into the city we were so rude to land in, and see if we cant get the wreck moved somewhere safer. Get a camp set up around the aft end of the ship. We are going to be here for a while." Then Richard decided to pay his prisoners a visit, get some answers, and ultimately release them. As he prepared to leave the AI said, "I think you will be needing me for the prison call." Richard rolled his eyes but mentioned for the AI to follow him. As he walked down to the prison block, he watched his crew work their way out of the ship, picking up vital stuff, such as food, as they went.

When Richard arrived at the prison block, he noticed that the two women were standing at the small window in the door, waiting for someone to show up. As Richard walked up to the door, he knew these two weren't his enemy. The crystal vessel was. He pulled out of his pocket a printed image of the dark ship and showed it to the two in the cell. He asked, "Would you two have any idea what this thing is? It's the reason we are on the ground." Jupiter shook her head, having no idea what the vessel was, but Pluto knew. She said, "I've seen several of these ships on the outskirts of the solar system. They usually dart in, take some readings, and then run back into the Oort cloud before we could contact them. This is the first time I've heard of them this close to the Inner Solar System." Richard nodded, realizing that this was the kind of info he needed. He thought for a moment, and then popped the release off the door and opened it. As they walked out, the captain said, "If one is powerful enough to blast my ship out of orbit, I hate to think what several will do to a city." Almost as if that was some cue, the captain's comlink signaled and the panicky-sounding voice of the TO crackled through.

"Sir, we are under attack by the same ship that popped us in orbit. We cannot penetrate it's shields, and it is trying to waste the city. I recommend we get into our fighters and blast it to the hellhole it came from." Jupiter fought not to cackle. It had been a while since she and the other scouts had a full blown brawl with the Negaverse, and this was starting to look like another incursion by them. Jupiter, being the veteran of dozens of brawls with the Negaverse, said, "Captain, I think this is a situation that the sailor scouts could handle no problem. I myself have fought dozens of fights and I think the Negaverse is behind this."

Richard grinned, knowing this would be one hell of a fight. He also knew that he could finally put his sword skills to the use that they needed. He cackled and said, "Well? What are we waiting for? Lets kick some Negaverse ass!!"

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"This is Scout Squadron One. We are in the air and are awaiting instructions from the Queen." Richard said. He knew that if he could safely get the scouts to the Dark Ship, they could get revenge on the damage done to his ship for him.

He watched as Jupiter's 2 sons unleashed a powerful blast of lightning towards the enemy vessel, nodding with approval as the energy blew a gaping hole in the hull. A transmission came up from the ground, relaying an attack strategy to the squadron. The plan was simple. The scouts were to be brought into range of their attacks, while their sons and daughters were to lay down suppressing fire from the ground. Meanwhile, the group of escort fighter-pilots were to attack the vessel directly, keeping its attention diverted from the real threat coming in from behind.

As the attack plan commenced, Richard noticed his motion tracker was lit up about 600 yards in from of the squadron. When he looked for the contacts he saw at least a couple dozen singleship fighters pulling up out of their dive and angling right for him and the attack group.

"Watch it! Single-ship fighters dead ahead!"

"I see them" cried Mercury, who whipped her fighter out of the way and unleashing a powerful jet of water at the cluster of fighters, blasting three of them to shreds. The enemy pack of fighter craft scattered, each one going after one of the fighters from the _Phoenix_. The Negaship pulled up over the Phoenix and proceeded to open fire on it But the huge ship reaised what shields it could and hunkered down.

While this was happening, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune all charged for the ship, building energy for a crippling shot. But as Richard accelerated to join the assault in his own way, the group fired their attacks at the ship. The bolts of energy drew close together, and without warning, hit Richard dead on, blowing him out of his fighter at 16,000 feet up. The scouts watched him fall noticing that the air around him seemed warped somehow. A moment later, 2 massive bolts of flame erupted from his feet, blasting Richard towards the vessel.


	3. Episode 1 Part 3: Arrival

Sailor Moon Chronicles

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 1 Part 3-

The battle was fully underway, and the Dark Ship was not going down. Missiles, bullets, plasma, all had no effect on the hull of the enemy ship. Then Richard, Captain of the now grounded Starship Phoenix, came up with the idea of putting the scouts in the air to bring the ship down themselves. As Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto began their attack run, Richard flew the opposite way with a few of the best pilots in the area in an attempt to knock out the engines and stall the ship. But as he blew by the 4 scouts in the air, a combined blast of energy blew him out of the sky.

Richard swore as his fighter exploded, throwing him into the blazing beam of energy pounding the hull into shards. But as he was fully immersed in the beam, an odd thing happened. Instead of being vaporized, Richard actually absorbed the fire and lightning parts of the energy stream. As this happened, he suddenly realized he was still 14,000 feet above the city and falling fast towards a crushing impact on the Phoenixes aft hull. AS this realization hit him, the absorbed fire suddenly exploded out of his feet, and at the same time, the stored lightning crackled to life around him, forming a deadly barrier. The flames held him up, and as he marveled at his new abilities, he yelled,

"LET'S ROCK!!"

He forced the fire coming out of his feet to compress into a pair of thin streams, rapidly accelerating him towards the enemy ship.

The secondary scouts on the ground watched this with awe. They knew that their mothers were powerful, but someone who could manipulate fire and lightning like that was more powerful than anyone… with the exception of the Queen. As they watched, the tiny bolt of fire that was Richard rocketed towards the midsection of the Dark Ship. As soon as he hit the hull a blinding blast of light was emitted from the destroyed vessel. The ship dropped to the ground outside the city limits, the bow half touching down first. They looked up to see Richard unleash a hail of fire and lightning attacks at the wreck, pulverizing the outer hull. The biggest shock of all day hit. A massive hologram formed above the wreck, and proclaimed in a loud voice, "I am Jedite, the commander of the Negafleet, and the destroyer of worlds! I may have spent the last 3000 years in deep sleep, but that was because of the Sailor Scouts! I am back to take my revenge, and will do anything to do it!! Ghahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!" And with that, the hologram vanished. As it did, several dark bolts of energy sped away from the wrecked ship and into space. But that wasn't the main problem.

"Mercury! What is going on?" Yelled Mars over the comlink. Both of them were circling over the shattered remains of the Dark Ship, and both wanted to know why the purple vessel was emitting light and shuddering. A thought entered Mercury's mind, one that wasn't her own.

The enemy ship is going to blow!! Get the hell out of here!!

As the Scouts fled, they saw the other wrecked ship fire up an energy shield and project it over the destroyed vessel, shaped in such a way as to channel the blast upwards. The scouts got maybe a mile from the downed Negaship when it finally blew. The fireball roared upward and out of the field, parting the clouds as it went. A single bolt of flame parted from the blast and curved away as the mushroom cloud grew. A loud cheer went up from the ground as chunks of the Negaship crashed back down to the ground, shattering into dust. The bolt of fire that was Richard, however, was at roughly 3,000 feet when the flames abruptly cut off, sending Richard into a freefall towards the ground. As soon as he hit there was a faint but noticeable crunch that was heard across the entire city.

All the scouts ran up to the 20 foot wide impact crater that was the place where Richard hit the ground. As they walked up, fearing what they might see, a loud cough was heard from inside the pit. Mercury peered into the dust filled pit with her visor and saw Richard lying down, coughing and muttering to himself. He paused, then turned around and called, "I'm all right! But what a rush!" Serena, however, didn't exactly trust the captain. She knew that someone who could do something like that was powerful indeed and could defeat her in a fight, even with the Silver Imperium Crystal to assist her.

Another cough got her attention, closely followed by a long series of swearwords as rocks and dirt tumbled into the crater right in front of her. By this point though, some of the crew had shown up and had shoved the scouts out of the way to get the captain out. The captain climbed out, dusted himself off, and decided that now would be a good time to make amends to the damage wreaked apon the city. He made a low bow and said, "Forgive me for the wreck on your front doorstep, but the crystalline vessel blew us out of the sky and I couldn't change course." He stood up fully and said, "I am Captain Richard Perez of the Galaxy-class cruiser Phoenix, and second in command of the Solar Fleet. I have returned to Earth to fulfill my mission. The mission is to protect the Solar system from all threats and to keep the Royal family safe."

King Darien raised an eyebrow. He thought, "So he is a captain and a subcommander of an entire fleet of ships. And the trick with the flames! He could definitely be a potential ally." Darien coughed to draw the captain's attention to himself and said, "I am King Darien of Planet Earth. This is my wife Serena, and we welcome you here." Darien paused for a moment, then held out his hand. Richard took it and shook vigorously. Darien was surprised at the captain's physical strength.

Richard turned around, looking at his ship, sighed once, and said, "Well shall I give you the grand tour?" Most of the scouts nodded, but Serena, as well as Mars and Uranus, had their doubts. Mars said, " But what if you are our enemy and want to trap us? Inside something that big would give you plenty of opportunities…" Richard rolled his eyes and said, "Now if that were true, I wouldn't have let your other two friends go. Besides, I have bigger problems than trying to capture you all." At that moment, a loud groan was emitted from the ship's starboard aft wing joint. With a loud bang, it tore away and crashed to the ground, sending men and dirt flying all over the place. Richard winced and said, "You are crazy to think I want to capture you. But enough of that. I need to summon the fleet and get the planets some protection just in case some more Negaships pay us a visit."


	4. Episode 2 Part 1: Revelations

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 2 Part 1-

" While I am giving you the tour of my ship it is prudent you follow a few simple rules. One; If it looks dangerous, don't get close to it unless I say so. Two; My ship is obviously damaged. As a result, my men will be running around working on the ship. Stay out of their way. And finally, anything I tell you is a secret, especially what I have to reveal once I tell my full story"

The Scouts nodded, but Serena didn't like this though. She though, "Why give us a tour then tell us to keep everything secret? And just how big is this fleet you said you were going to summon?" Captain Richard Perez noticed the look on Serena's face and said, "What, you don't like how this sounds? Tough. It may be my mission to protect the Solar System from attack but until you have earned my respect I do not recognize your authority." She was preparing a good retort when, with a loud roar, the dropship arrived, dented from its rough ride during the Phoenix's crash. Instead, Serena shot the captain a dirty look behind her husbands back before boarding the craft. As the hatch began to close, a couple of loud cries was heard from the outside. Richard glanced out the back hatch to see half a dozen children decked out in similar suits that the scouts were wearing (for the girls it was the standard scout uniform and the guys had armor plating and swords). The kids made it to the dropship's hatch, and said as one, "You aren't taking our parents anywhere without us mister."

Richard raised his eyebrows, surprised that ones so young were so bold. But he had to put his foot down. "Im sorry, but the ship isn't in exactly its best shape at the moment. It would be a good idea if you-" He was abruptly cut off when a fairly tall teenage boy walked up and without ceremony, slugged the captain in the gut. Richard, who had taken many a hard knock, shrugged of the blow. But a direct attack had to be dealt with… but Richard had an edict about attacking children. Instead of attacking the kid, he looked down at him and asked, "Whats your name, kid?" For a moment, the kid looked scared, but then he said, "My name is Io, son of Jupiter and wielder of the earth."

The captain looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Well, its not often I meet someone so young yet so bold, Io. Very well, if you insist on coming along, do be careful… and work on that punch." Jupiter stood up and said, "What gives you the right to treat my son that way? I never gave you permission to even speak to him." Richard paused, then said, " If you must know that… then we need to get to my cabin and discuss it… after the tour of what's left of the ship. So strap yourselves in people. Its going to be a rough ride to the ship."

xxxxxxxxxx

As the group walked around the ship, the Scouts were having a private conversation in their heads. Mars, for an hour straight, was ranting and raving about the poor condition of the ship, the captain, and several other things. Mercury was barely paying attention. Instead, her visor was out and her several thousand year old computer was scanning away at the interior of the ship. Jupiter had her thoughts to share too. She said, Well I don't see anything wrong with the captain so far besides the fact he's an arrogant toerag, has incredible power, and he thinks he's higher up than we are. Serena thought to herself for a minute, than said, Well I suppose you are right. But where does one get that kind of power? Seriously, not even Mars could pull off that flying trick with the fire. And Jupiter can barely raise a lightning shield around herself for self protection, let alone attack. And I get this weird feeling that he is hiding something big. Mercury, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Mercury paused in her scans and said quickly, He sure is powerful, yes. But when I compare his scan to the one of the ship, the vessel almost blew my computer apart the power levels were so high. I think the ship is hiding something in its own right. From what I have been able to pick up, there are several spatial distortions on the ship as well as vast amounts of electromagnetic radiation coming from the aft end of the ship. I wonder what is going on back there…

Venus paused as a group of men supporting an I-beam walked by, then said, I don't think the captain is a bad man. But there is something about him that gives me the chills. When Io slugged him in the gut, I could swear that his eyes briefly flashed red. Im pretty sure Mars has picked up the evil vibes radiating off of him. RIGHT MARS?!

Mars went quiet for a moment. Just as she was about to respond, Richard said, "I know you all probably have some means of communicating amongst yourselves, but please dont do it behind my back. I hate it when people do that. Anyways, we are about to enter the engineering area, and I need to warn you that the antimatter/fusion hybrid reactors are in their shakedown cycles and it is dangerous to get too close to the containment vessels."

Mercury looked surprised at this news. She then said, "Wait, you have antimatter/fusion hybrid reactors?" At this there was a multitude of thuds from behind her but the impacts were ignored. Richard grinned, knowing that he had impressed at least one of them. He looked at the glowing reactors and said, "Yup. We got 6 of them in the Eta Carinae system a few months before their star went haywire. It was a shame too because it was the most scientifically advanced society I have ever come across in my 5000 years of space travel." At this the scouts cried, "5000 YEARS?!" Richard rolled his eyes, but he knew exactly what they were thinking. He spun on his heel and said, "Well if you must hear my story, we will do it once we get finished touring. Besides the next and last thing we are going to do on this tour is check out the weapon arrays."

After a 30 minute walk along the starboard the group made it to the starboard Magnetic Accelerator Cannon array. Darien looked impressed by the sheer size of the weapons. As he looked, a large slide moved down the length of the barrel, closing several vent hatches along the way. Richard noticed the slide movement and swore. He pulled out his comlink but before he could activate it, the slide came speeding back towards the observation platform. Richard yelled, "Hold on! Its going to be rough! And I told them NOT to fire the cannons while in an atmosph-" Richard's last words were drowned out by the loud boom of the cannon firing. A blazing fireball screamed out of the barrel at close to 50,000 MPH and roared by the damaged Crystal Palace, heating up the outer layers but doing no damage. The 600 ton shell was visible as it climbed out of the atmosphere and went into space. Richard looked sheepish as the Scouts glared at him, their ears bleeding from the noise. As Richard was preparing to apologize, his comlink signaled. That's when the scouts all saw it. Richard's eyes were glowing bright red from his suppressed fury. After a moment, the red glow faded but the anger remained.

Richard wrenched the comlink from his belt and roared, "GOD DAMNIT JACK!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT! NOT ONLY ARE WE IN THE ATMOSPHERE, WE ARE CRASHED AND OUR WEAPONS ARE POINTED AT A FAIRLY LARGE CITY!! WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HAD FIRED THE ECLIPSE CANNON!?" The weapon specialist named Jack cowered at the other end of the conversation, mainly because everyone in the bridge could hear the captain's roar quite clearly. He said, "I didn't do it sir! It was that stupid AI, Mack!!" Richard hearing this, gave a sigh, is fury spent. At this there was a few stifled giggles from behind him. He turned to see several of the secondary scouts (the kids) fighting to keep from laughing out loud. Richard said, "What's so funny?" At this point one of the kids couldn't hold it in any longer and started to howl with mirth. Soon all the other kids were laughing hard too. The captain paused ad nthen turned back towards the weapons underneath him, saying, "Christ. I just got pissed off because you kids wanted to scare the hell out of me? Well I'll say it worked. I was scared that the tower was going to get hit."

A disembodied voice replied, "Hey what do you expect? They did persuade me to do it. And it took all of my processing power to restabilize the reactors after the shot. If I were you, I wouldn't complain about anything right now because had I not gotten the reactors back under control, we would all now be in the middle of a half-billion degree nuclear fireball." The captain paused, then said, "YOU did that?! Well in that case, I'm going to have to shut you down and get your programming looked at." The AI began to plead with the captain, but he wouldn't hear it. Recklessly endangering the human lives that it was his mission to protect was unacceptable. He activated his comlink and said, "Hey Lieutenant, shut Mack down after the shakedown cycles are complete. And make sure to reset the security codes to the guns after Mack is offline."

After receiving the confirmation of his orders from the Lieutenant currently in charge of the bridge, Richard said, "Well, now that that problem is out of the way, I'm guessing you are all curious just who the hell I am. We will discuss that once we are in my cabin."


	5. Episode 2 Part 2: Revelations

Sailor Moon Chronicles

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 2 Part 2-

"My name is Captain Richard M. Perez, sub-commander of the Solar Fleet and Commander of its flagship, the Galaxy Class Cruiser Phoenix. My mission, set to me by Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom, was, and is, to protect the solar System from threats from outside its outer boundaries. To ensure I didn't run from my duty (I was a bit of a coward back then) I was cursed to everlasting life. You may think that this is a good thing. Think again. I've seen things that make me want to kill myself. I've done things even worse. The point is, I'm back to get the curse removed and finally drop dead."

With this, Richard began his story. But before he could continue his story, Jupiter asked, "Where did all of your power come from? I've never seen anyone manipulate energy like that." Richard said, "What, like this?" and caused a bolt of lightning to form a sphere about a foot across to float above his hand. "I can manipulate just about any form of elemental energy but I am best with fire." As he said this, the sphere of lightning turned red. "It's not the kind of fire that Mars releases in an attack, but star-fire. This energy is powerful, and if it were to fall in the wrong hands, would plunge the entire universe into permanent darkness. What I did today was a sign that my true abilities are trying to re-awaken. Problem is, the damn curse gets in my way."

"But how did you gain control over such a powerful force?" asked Mercury. Richard looked thoughtful for a moment then said, "Well, it all started roughly 5500-6000 years ago. The Solar Fleet was being completed, and the idea was being toyed about that certain individuals should get the powers of the planets." He gave a short laugh, one that was cold. "Those stupid bastards didn't know what they were doing. It was a good idea in their eyes and they said, 'Hey, why not give it a try?' So they selected me to be the first and the leader of this 'group' to become the next protectors of the solar system. They though that a woman wouldn't be able to harness such power so only men were to be chosen. But they chose to pair me with the wrong power. The day I got my abilities was a blessing in disguise. My powers were given to me inside of this crystal." He pulled a large red stone on a thin silver chain out from underneath his armor and showed it to everyone before putting it back.

"Anyways, I walked around, showing off my power, entertaining little kids, that sort of thing. The next warrior was to be the one for the Planet Jupiter. He told me, 'Once I get my power, you are no match for me!' The he laughed in my face. I was a hothead at that time, and I proceeded in the way anyone would if they had lots of power and could use it on the spot. The asteroid belt is the result. The planet that orbited between Mars and Jupiter was blown apart by my fury. I had used a now forbidden attack called the Supernova Blast. The inner planets got hit by debris flung out of the enormous nuclear fireball, killing tens of thousands in addition to the millions already dead from the initial blast. More were killed when the others got their powers too. I spent the first ten years of possessing my power wiping out the 'freaks' as they were called. They were tough to kill and they were power hungry. But after the disaster, I was granted amnesty for my initial crime, provided I had my power put under wraps and became immortal. By this time, Queen Serenity had begun to rule but it was still 300 years before the Silver Millennium would begin. That's when I was given my mission to protect the Solar System from attack by using the fleet, which by then numbered some thirty thousand vessels. I had set up an invincible defense parameter around the borders, but after several hundred years of doing nothing, I began to slack off. I thought that since the defensive line is so strong, why not go inwards to take a break? That's when all hell broke loose. As soon as I showed up at the lunar spaceport, Beryl attacked. To this day I still regret not setting up a defensive line around the planets themselves instead. I was good with the sword and the shield and I slaughtered enemies by the hundreds, but there were too many. So I did the one thing I had forbidden myself from doing. I unleashed another Supernova Blast 300 miles above the lunar surface. Not only did it fail, but the Imbrium Basin was the result. The second blast knocked me out, and when I awoke, the battle was already lost. Now, when the Phoenix was built, this galaxy was still at war with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. Sure, they had more ships and more warriors than us, but this ship contained a weapon more deadly than anything built. That weapon is the Eclipse Cannon. What this cannon does is it first charges up a massive amount of energy from the reactors. Then a targeting beam is shot at the intended target, drilling a hole down to the core of it. The targeting beam is shut down, then the primary blast comes tearing down the hole drilled by the targeting beam, striking the core and adding energy to it. What this extra energy does to the target is it forces it to spin faster and heat up. After a certain point, gravity and the crust of the doomed target can not hold it together any more, and the target is finally blown apart."

"Anyways, after I had awoken, the Phoenix was already there, trying to beat back Beryl's forces. I got the stupid idea of chasing Beryl to the planet Venus, trap her there, and blow her sorry ass to hell. I got in the firing chamber of the Cannon, and as it charged up, I added my own power to it. The result was a blast of energy so powerful it blew right through the planet without destroying it. There was nothing which I could do at this point because Beryl was already back on the moon when Serenity sacrificed herself to save earth. What a fool. I told her to let me do it because I was an abomination and needed to be destroyed. But instead, just before her death she cursed me to live forever. The everlasting life the Imperium Crystal has granted you all is one where if you were attacked by sword or disease and you were unable to defend yourself, you could die. My immortality is different because no matter what happens to me, I cannot die." With this he pulled out a huge handgun, pointed at his head, and squeezed the trigger. The spray of blood coated everyone, and several immediately passed out. That's when the blood and brain and bone began to move through the air to put themselves back in Richard's skull. After 3 minutes, Richard was standing by the open window, staring into the night.

"I've tried everything to kill myself. Nothing works. Not a gun, not a sword, not a 50 Giga-ton antimatter nuke, nothing. I am cursed, and until that curse is lifted, I will never be able to fulfill my mission."

With that, Richard ended his tale. Darien looked like he was about to puke from the recent attempted suicide. Several of the others were getting hauled out of the room by the medics. Richard paused, than said, "I have been roaming the galaxy for the past 5000 years, doing my best to help people out from the evil forces of the Negaverse. I have wiped out towns, cities, entire continents, whole planets, hell, even entire star systems, just to get revenge on the bastards that caused so much damage here. But they are smarter than what they used to be. They have spies on every world from here to the Core worlds. No matter where I go, they always run before I get there, and when I think it's a planet infested by the Negaverse, it turns out its just a normal world. I destroyed 3 worlds just because I was too stupid to check and see if they were there or not. I have the blood of over 4000 worlds on my hands, and would do anything to cleanse them."

"But enough of that. I told you earlier that in order to get my respect, you have to earn it, yes? How would you earn my respect? The answer: Kick my ass in combat."


	6. Episode 2 Part 3: Revelations

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 2 Part 3-

"When it comes to straight up fighting, I fight dirty. And since I cannot die, you are to use any means necessary to knock me out. I am very skilled when it comes to a sword. Be on your guard, because I will be using a sharpened blade, and I won't be using the flat of the blade."

Darien was stunned. So was everyone else. Richard just said that he wanted to do lethal combat between the scouts and was going to do it with a readied weapon. Richard noticed their shocked stares and said, "What, is this your first time dueling someone with the intentions to kill? Too bad. Life is tough and I need to know just how far you are willing to go to vanquish the evil that threatens us all. Now, I understand your children are learning the ways of the Sailor Scouts, yes? I need to see just how well they have been trained. I will use a wooden sword and will not attack. Is that good enough?"

The children behind the older scouts paused, then one said, "Sir, what if we don't have any training when it comes to weapons? I've barely managed to learn how to wield a sword, much less go into combat with one." Richard gave a great booming laugh before saying, "Well, I DO suppose it would be a good idea to pass on my skills. But to prove yourselves worthy of my skills, when I bring in after the battle between me and your mothers, your job is simple. Whack me with a wooden sword on the head. You can use any means necessary to stun me and hit me, including elemental attacks. However, if you aim to do me serious harm, I will be quite brutal. Now, if the parents will follow me, we can get this over with." With that, he turned on his heel and walked through the door into the sparring arena. As the worried scouts walked by, one of the technicians who always watches the practice fights said, "Be careful. He is good with all possible weapons and had a reputation for hit and run attacks. However, he never even tries to spar with children, and he has never used a genuine sword during a sparring session. I have no idea what is going on but I have a very bad feeling about this."

None of the scouts took comfort in this dire warning as they walked into the arena, and they soon forgot it altogether. They thought that the sparring arena would be a mid size room with several other people there for them to fight against. They received quite a shock when they saw what was really in the room. Instead of a smooth floor, it was a grayish dirt-like substance they were standing on. They looked up and saw a full replica of the Moon Kingdom Palace standing not 200 feet in front of them. They stared in shock at the replica. Richard, who was standing on a banister near the main building said, "Well, what do you think? It doesn't matter." As he said this his eyes steadily changed color from a gentle brown to a deadly blood red. "You aren't going to live long enough to enjoy it! SOLAR FLARE SLASH!!"

A searing bolt of plasma roared out from the tip of the Solar Sword, charring the plants and boiling the water in the fountains as it blew by.

"SHINE AQUA ILLUSION!!"

The blast of water hit the plasma and canceled it out but it didn't stop Richard, who was now charging towards them with the Sword, billowing black smoke. Jupiter swore and cried out,

'JUPITER THUNDER CLAP ZAP!!"

By now Richard had acquired a dark glow around him. Mars called out, "That's not Richard! If it was he wouldn't look like that." Richard's response was bone chilling.

"I will slaughter you all! And when I'm done with you I'll see just how poorly trained your children are! And to round it all off I will summon the Shadow Fleet to blast this insignificant world to pieces!! Gahahahahahahaaaa- aarrrrrggggg!!"

Richard's evil cackle was cut off by a roar of pain as the massive pillar of earth hit him in his back, sending him flying into the wall of the castle and knocking him out.

"Don't say I'm poorly trained. The way I see it, YOU'RE the one poorly trained!"

"Io! What are you doing here?" called Jupiter. "I thought you are supposed to be watching us?"

"Europa and Callisto wouldn't shut up. And Ganymede wanted to be a part of the action."

Jupiter couldn't help but smile, but before she could tell off her two sons, an evil voice was heard, both with their ears and their minds.

You will pay for that you brat. You and your family will die a slow and painful death. As for the rest, I invite you to come and watch.

There was a loud tearing noise, closely followed by a loud thump and a few well placed curses. A moment later the captain let loose a roar.

"WHAT!? Oh HELL NO! They are my guests aboard my ship and there is no way in HELL you are going to even touch them!"

A blur, two light taps, and Richard was standing behind them, sword drawn, and a slightly sheepish look on his face.

"This is the reason why I'm so old. This is the same Negatrash that wasted the moon kingdom over 5000 years ago. HE is the reason why the Moon Kingdom was killed off instead of being saved. If he hadn't snuck his little dose of power into the second shot of the Eclipse Cannon, Beryl would have died instantly. Instead the bolt of energy ripped right through the planet without doing any damage. Now its time to unleash 5000 years of payback, and I'm going to need your help to do it. Blast me with all of your energies. I will redirect them into this freak of nature and blast him into the hellhole which he came from."

"However, I need to distract him first. Start charging up." With that, he went tearing off with a one on one sword fight with his opponent. As they drew together, they unleashed their own energy attacks.

"SOLAR FLARE SLASH!!"

"BLACK HOLE CRUSH!!"

The two blasts veered off to the side, and the resulting explosion blew a 20 foot hole in the ships hull. An instant later, Richard and Shadow Richard were going toe to toe and to the death. Richard went for a slew of stabs and slashes, but they were all parried by Shadow Richard, who then added a jump attack to the mix. Richard rolled to the side and swiped at the legs of his opponent, but Shadow Richard jumped and flew out the gaping hole in the hull, firing off attacks as he went. Richard swore, and roared, "Oh no you DON'T!!" and responded with a well placed blast of plasma, blowing the fleeing Shadow Richard out of the air and putting him in a half mile long free fall. Richard threw himself out of the hole to chase his shadow in the fall and as he fell he began to intone in Latin,

"Vox of sol solis, tribuo mihi potestas volo quod debello meus inimicus!"

With a tremendous roar, Richard burst into flame and accelerated towards the falling shadow, unleashing wave after wave of plasma as he went. One of the waves hit and the shadow hit the ground with the force equivalent to three tons of explosives. Richard touched down with similar force, but he landed on his feet and thus absorbed the impact. Still alight, he began to search for his shadow in the wreckage scattered on the ground. He searched for no less than three seconds before his shadow hit him from behind with a blast of dark energy. The captain cried out in pain, and then collapsed. Shadow Richard walked up to Richards unconscious body and said, "That's all for you, firehead." He chuckled and began to walk away, but he made it only three steps before a rapid patter of impacts signaled the arrival of every Sailor Scout. He noticed that every single one also had a distinct glow about them, and their tiaras were missing, replaced by their planetary symbol. With a roar they all unleashed their attacks. But instead of hitting the shadow, the beams slammed one by one into Richard's body, causing it to glow all its own. Richard coughed, gave a chuckle, then got up.

"That's all for you firehead? Wow. And I thought I was screwed up in the head. You want flames, you just asked for them. Look at my forehead." Everyone looked, and most of the female scouts let loose a scream. In the exact middle of Richard's forehead was a simple circle. No frills, no flame accents, just a circle. And as the scouts stared, it began to blaze with light, blinding them all. Mars said, "What is that symbol?" Richard laughed and said, "That is the symbol of the sun." He turned to the clearly scared Shadow Richard, and with out further ado roared loud enough for the entire city to hear;

"SUPERNOVA…………BLAST!!"

A huge sphere of light roared outward, consuming the shadow in its fury but leaving the scouts unharmed. A moment later, the nuclear fireball contracted on itself and was reabsorbed into the unconscious captain's body. The white ring on his forehead persisted for a few more seconds, and then vanished.

Xxxxxxxxxx

The void was all consuming. A invisible force attempted to pull him back, but he fought against the pull, finally finding respite. He looked around and saw what looked like lines. After close examination, the lines turned out to be time lines, marking his life, the lives of others, even those of his ship. He looked at his line, which glowed a deep ruby-red, and saw that it was now intertwined with another thread, one so bright it nearly blinded him. A voice finally called out from the yawning vortex below, one so deep that it shook him to his very core.

There are questions about yourself, questions that need answers. From now on, on the fields of battle, you will no longer be just a captain or a leader. You will be known as Solaris, Warrior of the Stars. He is your companion now, and will reside in the crystal you now wear. Answers will come with time.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" The void remained silent, but now there were what seemed to be images, spiraling into the vortex; The _Phoenix_, the fleet, Earth, the Scouts, and countless others. He turned back to the time lines to see a bright blue one wind itself around the Solaris/Richard line, and all three pulsed with phenominal power. More lines joined it, and soon a thick line, with thousands of constituent strands was blazing towards a bright light.

The captain was stunned. "Is this my future?"

The void didn't respond.

A moment later the thick time line hit the bright ball of light, and an wall of energy blew him into the void.

Xxxxxxxxxx

"Richard? Richard…. Wake up you lazy idiot."

Richard woke up with a cry of pain; Io had just slugged him in the gut again. Richard rolled out of his bed and hit the floor with a loud thud. Io laughed and called, "Hey, he's awake!" Jupiter yelled, "You hit him didn't you?" Io laughed again, and just before Jupiter was about to shock him, Richard said weakly, "Let the kid go. He woke me from the void and I thank him for that. But I will explain some things later. For now, let me rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day." As they left, Richard thought, "Well hell. I'm free and the first thing I want to do is sleep. Not get a girl, not blow something up in celebration, although one of the scouts is already on my list and there are quite a few things I plan on blowing up. Hot damn, what am I going to do now?"


	7. Episode 3 Part 1: The War Begins

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 3 Part 1-

"Good morning Sir! Do you need anything?"

The captain snorted and said, "Yeah, for you to go away." Laughter echoed around the bridge of the Starship Phoenix, and as the captain sat down in his seat, a rumble shook the ship. He called out, "Engineering, we ready to get this wreck off the ground and back into space?" The reply from engineering couldn't have been better.

"Yes sir. All reactors are back online with current peak at 66 of the max output. We are already making the preparations to lift off."

Captain Richard Perez gave a grunt and drained his half gallon water bottle. Ever since the explosion he had to consume at least several gallons of water a day in order to keep cool. The ship was acting the same way at first but after almost 3 months hard work, the ship was flying again. He opened a comlink channel to the city just outside and said, "Attention. Can I have your attention please? In three hours the Phoenix is going to be back in orbit. However, before I can launch the ship, I need to clear my engines of any debris that is still inside the exhaust ports or there will be an explosion. So I am requesting that the city be evacuated in order to prevent loss of life should something go wrong. I have received permission to do this from the Queen, who is currently in a space station set up to watch the show. If you want, my dropships will transport up to 5000 people to the station to watch the launch. Thank you for your time, that is all."

"Ok I want a final status check by the time I issue the order to launch. I will be outside in my fighter so try not to go too fast apon liftoff ok?"

"Yes sir. Ok Navigation, what's the status on the navigation systems……?"

Richard limped his way towards the bridge exit, still sore from the fight three months earlier. As he walked don the corridor, he wasn't paying attention and tripped, knocking someone else down as well. After a few seconds on pain, he opened his eyes and found that he couldn't see. He pushed himself up and realized that he has just gotten a face full of Mars' breasts. He gulped and said, "Oh shit." The wall of flame blew him back onto the bridge and out through the open access hatch. Mars roared, "You PERVERT!! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?" The men on the bridge watched him fly out the hatch, and without even saying anything, went back to work.

After several seconds of flight, the captain crashed down into the fighter bay, nearly getting impaled on a sharp piece of metal in the process. He got up with what little dignity he had left, and said to the technician nearby, "Get my fighter ready. Full load of fuel and some Sidewinders, as well as 3000 rounds of ammo for the miniguns. And if the bridge asks for me, tell them I'm not here. Got it?"

The technician grinned and said, "What, you do something that would piss one of the Scouts off?" Richard turned flame red and said, "Get my plane loaded will you? I have to monitor the liftoff sequence. And mind your own business." Before either of them could do move more than 5 feet, the comlink from the bridge signaled and an all too familiar roar blasted through it. Richard turned pale, and then bolted for his loaded fighter. He silenced the comlink but it restarted almost immediately.

"HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME?! YOU ARE A PERVERT AND WHEN I GET DOWN THERE I WILL BURN--" Richard gave a sigh of relief and said, "Thanks Mack. That really helped." The AI coughed and said, "You better hurry. She is on her way as well as Phobos and Deimos, and boy are all three pissed. And Amy is on her way as well but she said she needed to watch the ship as it takes off from a good vantage point. At the rate its going, you will have less than ten seconds to haul ass out of here once Amy is in the back seat."

Barely ten seconds after Mack had finished his monologue, Amy came tearing into the launch bay. Judging by the amount of small burns on her boots and clothing (she wasn't in her sailor suit) she looked like she had just gotten into a brawl with Mars and her two daughters. Richard called, "Get in!! If you aren't in here in three seconds I'm leaving without you." She threw herself in the back seat and just as the canopy closed, Mars entered the room.

"Aw shit. LAUNCH US NOW!!" With a roar all seven engines roared to full throttle, blowing Mars and her kids off their feet and pinning them to the wall. The catapult screeched with rust, and then with a whine, flung the LightningStrike Fighter out of the bay and into the air. Richard and Amy were pinned to the seat from the g-forces but after a moment they lessened to normal. The fighter's booster engine sputtered and then powered down, lessening the g forces even further. Richard laughed and then noticed that once again he was in a fairly awkward situation. Somehow during the launch, Mercury had managed to get in the pilots seat while Richard was already there, and the result was that she sat on his lap. She turned red and without ceremony climbed into the back seat.

Richard, who was sweating profusely, said, "That never leaves this cockpit, okay? I already have Mars going after me because I tripped and fell on top of her." Mercury giggled and said, "Well, to be honest, I actually liked it." Richards face began to blaze with the embarrassment. He coughed and said, "Umm can you fly one of these? I need to do something. BYE!!" and then he yanked the eject handle, flinging himself out of the bottom of the cockpit. At the same time, he burst into flame again and flew away from the fighter, leaving Amy in the air all alone. Richard came to a hover about three miles away and said into his comlink, "Phoenix, you are go for launch. Repeat, you are go for launch. But before you take off, get me a Dimensional line to the fleet. I think its time they showed up to help protect the planets."

There was a pause for several seconds, before a dull crack and a whine from the comlink indicated that he had the line to the fleet. He coughed and said into the comlink, "This is Captain Richard Perez of the Galaxy class Cruiser Phoenix. The solar system is threatened. Return to the Solar System to help the Phoenix defend Earth and the other planets from harm."

As soon as he cut the line there was a bright flash of white fire tinted with blue from below, and a moment later, the earsplitting roar of the ship's mighty engines was heard.

The ships superstructure protested for a few seconds, and then with a shriek of metal on crystal, the ship's bow began to lift off of the ground. But the far heavier stern of the ship was still firmly stuck in the 400 foot deep water filled trench that the ship had carved three months earlier. The booster engines, located about two-thirds of the way to the stern of the ship, then lit at full throttle, carving two molten trenches on either side of the vessel. With another loud roar, the auxiliary engines located on two separate reactor pods, swiveled down to point directly at the ground. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the bright red exhaust, in the form of dancing plasma, came roaring out at nearly ten thousand miles an hour. The scaffolding that had been erected around the ship to help with the repairs collapsed from the sheer heat of the engine's exhaust and quickly melted. With a groan and a shower of sparks from the nose of the ship grinding against the Crystal Spire, the Phoenix became airborne.

By this time, Mercury had pulled up to Richard's side and had put the fighter into hover mode. Richard noticed this and after a moment's hesitation, sat on the starboard wing. Mercury opened the canopy, and sat down beside him. She glanced at him and noticed he has a glazed look about his eyes and decided it was better for her to keep her silence. After a moment he said, "It was over 5000 years ago when I last gave the order to launch the ship. It was a wonder how something so big could fly and yet, it flew. It went up with a parade and the other ships firing off their guns and all sorts of celebration for the 'greatest achievement of mankind'." He sighed. "If I knew the true intended purpose of the ship, I would have never given the order to launch it. After all those years, I still ask the same question over and over again. Why? Why make something that is supposed to kill entire planets? Why make it so big to carry an entire army for three years without resupply? Why? And yet, the answer still evades me. Then again, the Andromeda War probably had something to do with it."

Mercury raised her eyebrows and asked, "What was the Andromeda War? I've never heard of it."

Richard paused before saying, "The Andromeda War was a catastrophic war between this galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy. For some inexplicable reason, they attacked. The losses during the first ten years of the war include but aren't limited to at least two thousand star systems utterly destroyed, no remains except for dust and gas. Billions dead and countless more star systems ravaged. That was the original reason the Phoenix as well as the fifty thousand strong Solar Armada was built. The first three years of the war after the finalization of the fleet saw most of it destroyed by the Andromeda fleets and most of the captured crews killed in horrible ways. Thats when it was decided to modify the Phoenix to hold the superweapon known as the Eclipse Cannon."

"But after the first shot of the Eclipse Cannon, they gave up. No one knows why they just gave up on a three century campaign because of a test firing of a powerful weapon. We had tested powerful weapons before. The Nova incident was the….. Well I should say the worst, but the blast wave saved billions of lives, but resulted in the destruction of trillions. Trillions for billions? Just what the hell were they thinking? Now after all this time, there is one question that will haunt me until the day I die. Just how many lives were lost in the Andromeda War? And how many were because of those words?"

Mercury looked away, and as she did she realized the reason why Richard was so quiet at times and yet so vocal at others, why her never slept and why he always did hypersonic passes over the city was because he was haunted by the one question that haunted everyone: "What if?"

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud groan from below, closely followed by a screech of metal. The comlink signaled and Mars' voice called through it, "You better not be doing anything _funny_ up there with Mercury. Besides the ship is about two miles up and rising slowly. Oh and another thing, when you get back onboard, I WILL kick your ass." Richard babbled incoherently for several seconds, then sighed and said, "Well, that's the price I pay for the pride of fire. And it WAS an accident…"

"Well never mind that now. I need to guide the ship up into space and make sure it can achieve orbital velocity. Excuse me." And he fell off the wing into the clouds below.

Mercury had a dreamy look on her face when Jupiter opened a holographic channel to the fighter. It took Jupiter three seconds to recognize Mercury. And when she did, Jupiter started laughing.

"You don't actually like him do you?" asked Jupiter with a childish look on her face.

Mercury turned bright red and said, "N-N-N-No I don't like him at all. Its just that I think he is a good person who is trying to do something to help us. I never had that interest anyways."

Jupiter laughed. "You didn't know how to lie well, and your bright red face proved it. Admit it, you…. GANYMEDE!! YOU ASKED FOR IT THIS TIME!!"

Jupiter's face vanished from the display and was immediately replaced by Ganymede's. He said, "You owe me one." And then bolted as the hail of lightning hit where he stood. Another holo screen opened and Mercury received a shock when the image cleared to reveal Richard. She panicked and put the fighter into a nosedive. As the vehicle dived she tried to pull out of it but the fighter wouldn't respond. She screamed and just when she was about to give up a bolt of flame collided with the nose of the fighter, slowing the vehicle down. About three feet above the ground the bolt of flame stopped, as well as the fighter. Mercury glanced up and saw that her savior was Richard. He grinned and said, "Next time, hit the auto level button. It helps." A quick spin and a throw later the fighter was back at twenty thousand feet, now accompanied by the fireball that was the captain. He sat back down on the wing and said, "Well the ship is going supersonic in 5 minutes so sit down…" A blast of wind sent the fighter spinning, and once again, Richard was in an awkward position. He had grabbed Mercury's leg as she fell, exposing her underwear. She screamed and Richard was soaked from the jet of water that came tearing his way. Unfortunately, he also lost his grip and began a 4 mile free fall… which was promptly halted by one of the cruisers wings as it rose through the clouds. A holo screen appeared, this one carrying the face of Mack. The AI said, "Tut tut captain. Mars isn't going to be happy." At this Richard glanced at the edge of the wing not twenty feet away and said, "Damn. I would have preferred the fall to dealing with Mars again."


	8. Episode 3 Part 2: The War Begins

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 3 Part 2-

Jedite went flying across the floor to a crushing impact against the wall. When he got up a voice, heavily distorted by evil, said, "You have failed me, Jedite. Not only was the ship not destroyed, but this 'Captain Richard Perez' has awoken to his true powers as the one known as Solaris! What were you doing on Earth?"

Jedite crawled to where he stood before and got back on his knees. He thought, "Maybe I should have used a Negabomb and nuked the city."

The voice cried, "City? What city do you think of?" Jedite cursed under his breath before saying, "Shadow Master, the city I think of is none other than the Crystal Tokyo of Earth! This city is where the Sailor scouts reside and from the looks of it, the 'captain' has decided to make a base for his own use. While his ship is on the ground, it is completely useless. If I can destroy the planet before he manages to get the ship back in space, it will greatly accelerate our plans to take over the universe. I am requesting that all available Negaships be dispatched to earth to wipe the insignificant planet from the future of the universe. As for Solaris, I will deal with him myself. I will not fail, Shadow Master."

The voice cackled and said, "You had better not. I have done my research. You failed horribly under Beryl. I won't be as lenient as her. You may go… DO NOT DISTURB ME WITH YOUR INSIGIFICANT REPORTS!!"

A small imp (the lowest level of common demon) stood several feet away, shaking visibly. He squeaked, "The most awesome and powerful Shadow Master, I have grim news. The enemy vessel known as the Phoenix, has just returned to space. Worse, this vessel has sent out some sort of signal because now the entire Solar Fleet has changed course and is returning to the Solar System."

A earsplitting roar was heard, and the voice, now clearly pissed, hissed, "Jedite, you have control over every vessel you so desire. Wipe this 'Solar Fleet' out, and make sure Earth goes with it. Gahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!"

Jedite walked backwards slowly and then warped to the Shadow Fleet's flagship, the _Death of the Light_, to contemplate how to execute this plan. The pulled up a complete blueprint of the Galaxy class ships and discovered a crucial weakness that was going to be easy to exploit. The question was how to keep the rest of his own fleet safe from the opening salvo of shells and plasma that will surely be coming his way. He grinned and said to the fleet channel, "All vessels, prepare to jump into Z-space. Our destination is Earth."

xxxxxxxxx

"Where did this fleet come from? I thought there were only a few ships in the Oort cloud! It doesn't matter. All ships open fire. All Galaxy class cruisers, begin charging the Eclipse Cannons. Fire on my mark."

A huge explosion lit the viewscreen. The captain hit the deck, knocked down by the concussion from the blast. He got up and roared, "Status report! What the bloody hell was that explosion!?"

One of the men stationed on the sensor array yelled, "The Cruiser Prometheus is gone! It was taken out from the inside!"

"What?! How in the hell did they get past our shields?"

"Sir, Hull breach on F deck! Boarding parties, and they have a bomb!"

The captain swore and charged off of the bridge, grabbing a shotgun along the way. As he turned the corner near one of the reactor rooms, a cluster of demons walked into view. Richard unslung the shotgun and roared, "You want to kill my ship? Kill me first!" The first shot blew an demon into green and blue chunks, the second shot hit the leader in the chest, blowing him back into the boarding vessel. The third shot hit the bomb.

It glowed a deep purple for 5 seconds, during which the captain chose the two best words for the occasion.

"Aw shit."

(A brilliant blast of light is seen, and then blackness)

xxxxxxxx

"Sir! Wake up!"

Richard thrashed around in his bunk before falling out and hitting the floor with a thud. He grunted with the pain but accepted it, using it to help wake up and escape from the nightmare. As he rolled over and his blurry vision cleared, all of the senior officers were looking down on him ,some with concern, others with fear. He groaned and asked, "How long this time?" A young Lieutenant answered, "It was almost twenty minutes that time. Are you sure its just dreams? We all heard you yell 'You want to kill my ship? Kill me first!'."

Richard coughed and said, "I honestly don't know. It was so real this time. But I think all hell is going to break loose once the fleet gets here." He sighed, knowing that his premonitions could no longer be ignored. He got up with the help of the second in command, Lieutenant Commander Melano and said, "Well, I think we should go on alert just in case. Get to your posts if you have had more that 6 hours of sleep but if you have had less, set your alarm clocks to the end of your six hours of rest."

As he walked out on to the bridge, several of the officers there snapped to attention and Lieutenant Zimsky roared, "Captain on deck!" Richard sighed, and said, "At ease. Get 6 hours rest. I'll man the bridge for now until the other officers get here." He rubbed his eyes and added, "There is the possibility of a battle coming up in the next few days so be prepared."

One paused and said, "You had another premonition, didn't you? If that is the case we will all stay on duty until the battle is over."

Richard chucked and replied, "You don't have to do that. You are relieved until.." He checked a nearby clock "… 0850 hours. Don't worry about any battle just yet. Besides, we can't have a fight without the fleet, can we?" A roar of approval came from the men and women both entering and leaving. "It's what I thought. I will call you all when the time comes to watch the fleet drop out of Z-space. That is all."

As the shift change came to an end, Uranus walked in and sat down in the still vacant Lieutenant Commander's seat. She sighed and said, "Rumor has it a battle is about to begin, yes? And tell me a little more about this fleet that is about to arrive." Richard gave it some thought for a few seconds and then said, "Well, the fleet used to be a massive collection of fifty thousand ships, varying in size from singleship fighter craft to cruisers such as this one. But during the Andromeda war and the conflicts afterward, the fleet shrank to twelve thousand vessels. I dont know the precise number but I do know its less than fifteen thousand. Most of the ships are frigates and destroyers, but thre are quite a few carriers, cruisers, dreadnoughts, and support vessels too. There are several 'ghost ships' as well, called such because few have seen them, and there is one ship that is some eight times larger than the Phoenix and has survived every conflict and war, and it is known as the Phantom. What its real name is I don't know, but supposedly this vessel packs a massive punch, but when it were to be a straight up battle between the Phoenix and this 'Phantom', the Phoenix would win in a few well placed MAC shots because the Phantom isn't very maneuverable. The Phantom is forty miles long whereas the Phoenix is only five, and the Phoenix can do hit and run attacks, one of the things I helped redesign the ship to do. But this thing still has such a fat ass. Trying to make a full U-turn takes almost five minutes and the ship needs anywhere from fifty to half a million miles to fully turn around, depending on speed. As for the battle that is supposed to be coming up, hopefully the fleet can keep whatever threat that is about to attack from making it to the planet, but if they try anything and they manage to break through the lines, it will all fall to you scouts to keep earth from being overrun, because once they are on the ground the only thing that we can drop safely into the atmosphere are light frigates and destroyers, and other small vessels." He let loose a sigh that made the air ripple. "I just hope it doesn't get so bad where I have to go outside and nuke the enemy myself, or worse yet, run for it."

Uranus leaned back for a moment and then said loud enough for the entire bridge to hear, "And what about these little incidents with the other scouts?" Richard turned so pale so fast it was like someone pulled a plug and drained all the blood out of him. He whispered, "Shut up. If you reveal that, I'll never get any sleep from the jeering and catcalls." Uranus suddenly stood up and hissed, "Than don't do it again because I will have a sword fight with you." Richard laughed and said, "You couldn't defeat me in a thousand years when it comes to sword fighting, not with that puny thing you call a sword." Uranus was about to show him puny when a loud klaxon went off. The main viewscreen zoomed in on a part of space some three million miles away that was rippling white.

"Multiple Z-space ruptures detected at the alpha lagrange point. The distortion makes it difficult to tell exactly how many ships are about to drop out but the estimates are being put at sixty to eighty vessels. The ships are part of the Negafleet."

Richard turned, if possible, even more pale. "Eighty versus one? We are screwed. We are royally screwed."


	9. Episode 3 Part 3: The War Begins

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 3 Part 3-

"Eighty versus one? We are screwed. We are royally screwed."

Richard was about to issue the order to run like hell when,

"More Z-space ruptures behind us. It's the fleet! Its not all of it but its more than what the other guys have!" A cheer went up, which was quickly stifled when a holo screen popped up in the middle of the bridge. It showed a spectrum analysis which moved with the voice being issued from the screen.

"This is Jedite, Supreme Commander of the Shadow Fleet. It has been decreed that your puny insignificant world is to be destroyed, along with your fleet. Do not resist my fleet, for you will lose. It is best to accept your fate, for there is no other. I am unstoppable in my power! I am the one the onl—"

"Shut the hell up you wannabe! You think you know power? HAH! I know true power, power that you cannot defeat. It is the power of friendship. My friends include the scouts, the crew of my ship, the commanding officers of every vessel in my fleet, and those in the fleet that just dropped out behind you."

As the entire enemy fleet spun to the ruse, Richard opened up a fleet wide channel and roared, "ALL SHIPS OPEN FIRE!!"

The salvo of MAC shells and plasma mowed down many of the unshielded NegaShips and damaged quite a few more. By the time the Shadow Fleet had turned back around and raised their own shields, the Solar Fleet was among them, ripping apart any and every enemy ship within range. But this slaughter didn't last long. The enemy fleet had superior weaponry if not shielding. One of the Galaxy Class Cruisers was feeling the wrath of no less than eight destroyers and heavy cruisers, and even with 6 back to back Eclipse Cannon shots, it could no longer hold its own. The captain of this ship, the Prometheus, decided going kamikaze was preferable to having the ship captured. The severely damaged ship charged towards the enemy flagship, a hulking monster of a vessel nearly thirty miles long and encrusted with weapons, and fired all weapons and nuclear warheads before crashing into its hull. The nukes sped into the flagship and with a massive explosion, the Prometheus and the bombs blew the flagship in half.

Richard swore, knowing that the loss of even one Galaxy Cruiser was bad and if he lost another it would be even worse. Thing is, if his premonition of this battle was correct, there would now be boarding parties attacking the reactors and that would be especially bad because all of the Sailor Scouts were onboard the ship.

He thought for a moment and said, "Jupiter, Uranus, you two are with me. We need to hold the reactors until the boarding parties are repelled. Mercury, head down to the fighter bay with Io and Ganymede. All three of you get out there and help keep the boarding parties away!"

He grabbed a shotgun and a pair of pistols as he and the scouts ran out of the bridge, passing Saturn, whose Silence Glaive was stained with blue and green blood. Richard called, "Are we having fun? If not than help us hold the reactors until we clear the boarding swarms."

A explosion lit the corridor ahead as a boarding ship blasted a hole in the hull to get in. Then the demons poured through, quickly flooding the corridor. All four stopped at the edge of the horde, and all realized the battle just got really ugly. Richard glanced at the women on his left and realized they were raring for a kind of brawl they haven't had in millenia. Then he said, "The one that kills the most of these things gets a free dinner with me as the chef. I AM a good cook. If I win though I want you all to be my sparring partners until you can beat me. We ready? Lets kill these bastards!"

Uranus drew her Space Sword and began hacking demons apart by the dozens but Saturn, owing to her short size, was struggling in a duel between her and the leader. With a series of loud booms, the shotgun began to blow the now fleeing demons away, and those who were able to escape the hail of buckshot found that their only escape route was blocked by bolt after bolt of lightning and an occasional flaming lead slug from the pistols. A well placed shot took out the huge demon Saturn was trying to kill, and she took out her frustration of having her kill stolen by the captain on the remaining twenty or so demons. A quick check into the boarding vessel revealed not one but four NegaBombs, already armed and ready to blow up the ship. Richard climbed into the cockpit and set it to fly towards the nearest enemy ship, and as he left he set the timers for the bombs for two minutes. As he ran back into the ship, he activated a force field to keep the corridor from venting. Two minutes later a brilliant flash and a shower of shredded ship parts said the bombs had found their mark.

Richard looked at the massive pile of bodies in the corridor and said, "Aw damn. I had ordered this corridor get fresh paint three days ago. And besides, I think it is a tie between Jupiter and Uranus on the number of frags. Lets go, and I think there is going to be quite a few more of these bastards along the way to the reactors."

During the run to the reactor pods, Saturn asked, "What were those things?

The captain paused in midstride long enough to reload his shotgun. "Those were demons. There are five basic types; imps, foliots, djinn, afrits, and marids. Imps are essentially the cannon fodder of the demon world, but afrits and marids are damn near impossible to kill by oneself. There are higher entities that are collectively known as Demi-gods, and for a good reason. A single demi-god has the capacity of wiping entire planets out, and if we come across one we are not going to be able to kill it."

The group charged down the corridor to the reactors only to find the place was swarming with imps as well as quite a few afrits (High level demons but not the most powerful), and all were pondering how breach the reactor vessels, which were sporting several burn marks from the attacks but contained the reactions within.

One of the afrits said in a guttural voice, "Where are those idiot imps and the bombs? We need them to destroy this ship as per master Jedite's orders."

The captain said quietly "Fuck. They got afrits, and from what I'm seeing, the four afrits in the room aren't slouches. I should know, I've fought these things before in Orion Nebula region and it took a three hour long fight involving everyone on the ship just to take out two." He paused and said, "We have to draw them away from the containment vessels. They might not be strong enough to breach them, but we are and if we miss it will suck to be in the resulting fireball. I will draw their attention by wiping out the imps. Once they start following me, you three come up from behind and surprise them by blasting them into the Engineering escape pod. I'll finish them off by tossing in a HAVOK tactical nuke," he raised the football sized device "before sending them back to hell."

They nodded, but before Richard could move to execute the first part of the plan, Uranus asked, "Whats the yield on the bomb? And how long do we have before it blows?"

"The yield is ten megatons and the timer is set for thirty seconds. Any longer and the bomb will detonate in the middle of our fleet. Not long enough and the pod wouldn't leave the shields in time."

Then the afrits, realizing they weren't alone with the imps, roared, "Where are you? I crave to taste your blood!!"

Richard jumped out from behind the wall and shouted, "Taste this!"

The jet of flame and lightning incinerated the smaller demons, causing them to die in puffs of blue flame. The wounded afrits roared in pain then began to chase Richard down the escape corridor. They flung dark purple bolts of flame down the corridor but Richard had dodged them. He unslung his shotgun and unloaded it into the face of the nearest demon, which died instantly. The other three gave an evil cackle as the captain ran out of corridor to run down. He spun in time to see the three scouts who were to blast the afrits into the pod do so. Richard activated the nuke and tossed it in, at the same time hitting the jettison button on the other side of the hatch, sending the demons and their nuclear Christmas present to their fate, namely a huge explosion.

As the pod screamed away, the afrits let loose a earsplitting scream that matched quite nicely with the whine of the pods engines. Richard coughed, "Ok one threat down, ten thousand more baddies outside to go. Lets go waste some demons." They managed to make it to the fighter launch bay in time to see a full fledged battle with a marid (the most powerful form of common demon), which was holding its own before six secondary Scouts and a small battalion of Marines who were fighting it.

As the group rushed in to help bring it down, the marid spoke.

"Well well. If it isn't the famous Captain Richard Perez. You have caused plenty of trouble for my lesser brothers. You may call me Oblivion. My job is to capture you if possible and kill you if not. I have heard of your fighting skills and I wish to test them in a one on one fight. What do you say captain? You aren't afraid are you?"

Richard summoned the Solar Sword in a flash of fire and replied, "You wish. I accept your challenge to one on one combat. Time to meet your maker, Oblivion!"

He made a flying leap, swinging the sword to chop Oblivion's head off, but the huge demon blocked the blow easily, flinging the captain into the bulkhead with a dull crunch. The captain grunted in pain then retaliated with several fireballs. Oblivion didn't even budge to stop them, then he unleashed a brutal series of energy attacks, blowing everyone into the bulkhead. The demon laughed and said, "No human can defeat me! I am invincible to your puny attacks! None but the legendary Solaris can kill me! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!"

"None but Solaris eh? Well you are about to test that theory, because he just woke up and he wants out. You just wait until he takes control over me and we will see who is the most powerful after the change." There was a deep, dark laugh from him, and a moment later the all too familiar white circle had appeared on his forehead but the most obvious change happened to the sword. The weapons normal form was in the shape of a large flame, all sides sharpened to a razor edge. But the new form _was_ fire. Rather, the whole blade was now a bright blue jet of flame almost five feet long. The captain swung the blade in the standard sword salute, and as he swung it, the flame moved exactly as the normal weapon would. The captain looked up and the humans pulled back in fear. His eyes were red near the edges but a bright yellow near the center. The iris was still black, but all traces of brown had vanished. He walked three steps forward, and when he stopped a wall of fire erupted around him and Oblivion.

Saturn called out in a shaky voice, "Captain?"

He turned and said, his voice now deep crackle, "Captain? How quaint. My name is Solaris."

He turned back to the marid and said, "You called for me? I have awoken, and you are about to taste my wrath!"

He made a flying jump at the marid, but before he hit he vanished in a burst of flame. Oblivion looked around but didn't see him. A loud yell behind him caused him to turn around, and when he did he got a face full of blue fire, closely followed by a series of slashes and stabs from the sword.

Oblivion reeled from the cluster of attacks, and just as he was about to counter attack, Uranus unleashed her own specialized brand of hell.

"URANUS...WORLD SHAKING!!"

The blast of energy not only killed the barrier, but blew Oblivion through the bulkhead and into space. The air in the bay paused, then with a hurricane roar, began to vent into space.

xxxxxxx

The bridge of the ship shook violently as the fighter bay vented. But the bigger problem was the three Dreadnoughts that were bearing down on the Phoenix. The dreadnoughts were midsize vessels, but they had powerful weapons and nearly impenetrable shields. This left the subcommander, Lieutenant Commander Melano few options, if any. He sighed, and then said, "Contact the carrier _Hellraiser._ Tell then to launch all fighters at the Dreadnoughts. We need them distracted so we can blast them from behind."

One of the Solar Fleet destroyers, the _Incinerator_, heard the message as well and went one on one with one of the dreadnoughts. The dreadnought was three times larger, but it had no weapons for close range ship-to-ship combat. After barely thirty seconds point-blank combat, one of the _Incinerator's_ laser bolts found something critical in the dreadnought's crystalline hull, and shortly afterward, went up in a huge explosion, boosted along with a small nuke.

The other two dreadnoughts, however, went on a rampage. They took out three more ships before they got to the Phoenix. Unfortunately, when they got there, they were met by nearly a hundred single-ship fighters as well as a half dozen freshly fired MAC shells. The rounds hit the two ships, sending them reeling. Before they could recover, the fighters from both the _Hellraiser_ and the Phoenix attacked, tearing them to shreds.

As the bow fighter bay finished venting, two bolts of energy streaked out, blasting each other with streams of energy. One of the bolts was a blazing red, but the other was black. It took maybe thirty seconds for the bridge crew to realize who was the red fireball. but they never knew what or who the black energy bolt was, because soon after their appearance, the ship suddenly gave a violent shudder. With a groan and a series of loud bangs, the 60 or so giant explosive bolts that held the upper and lower halves of the ship together blew.

The upper half, containing most of the engines and single ship defensive cannons, was liberated from the bulk of the lower half. The lower half was thus left defenseless and barely able to move. But that wasn't the primary concern for either of the fleets. Their primary concern was the two energy bolts that were now creating explosion after explosion, literally bouncing off of ship hulls and generally causing chaos.

xxxxxxx

Solaris was losing the fight with Oblivion. The splitting of the Phoenix was caused by a well aimed blast by Oblivion and him crashing into the detonator lines as a result.

The explosions weakened him and he was beginning to have trouble maintaining his plasma bolt form. Oblivion, on the other hand, was busy trying to find a way to lure him into a nuclear fireball from an exploding ship. Thing was, Solaris knew the signs of a ship about to bite the dust, so this plan wasn't working. He sighed, knowing it was the only way to kill Oblivion. He forced some of the plasma surrounding him to fuse into a simple comlink and he said to the Solar Fleet at large, "You have thirty seconds to get out of the Alpha Lagrange point before you are destroyed in the coming explosion."

The remaining ships scattered, but the enemy fleet now turned its attention to the duel, helping Oblivion to win the fight by forming a sort of cage to keep Solaris from running. But this was exactly as he wanted it. He waited for all of the ships to lock together in a sphere, preventing his escape and theirs and roared, "You wanted to destroy me? Destroy this!!"

"SUPERNOVA...BLAST!!"

The plasma around Solaris compressed, turning blue white as it did. A moment later, the ball of plasma detonated with incredible force.

The shockwave roared outward, and its first victim was Oblivion. He didn't even have time to say something before the blast atomized him. The NegaShips tried to disengage from the cage and run for it, but the blast got them too. The only vessel that survived the blast was the two halves of the flagship, which had made a quick repair and was on the run. It managed to get behind the moon before the blast wave blew by it, pushing dust from the vaporized ships and the lunar surface ahead of it. After the wave blew by, it charged up its Dimensional Drive and jumped. The last victim of the blast wave was the moon. It managed to weather most of the blast, but as soon as it was entirely inside the fireball, it cracked into eight pieces. But since the blast wave was so weak at this point, the parts weren't destroyed.

The fireball hit the Earth's atmosphere, causing a massive Aurora across most of the globe. The fleet had made it to the ground, shielded by the planet's magnetic field.

For about two hours after the explosion, the Scouts and the commanding officers of the fleet waited in a conference room in the base of the Crystal Spire. they were waiting to see if the captain had survived the blast and was on his way home. Mini Moon was once again on top of the tower, watching the skies for any sign of his return. This search paid off within three hours, revealing a shooting star entering the atmosphere at high speed, creating a blazing blue fireball.

She ignored this fact, than realized that only Richard or Solaris could make such flames. When she looked back, the fireball had vanished, but the trail of black smoke was still visible against the fading Aurora. A moment later, a small fireball on the ground signaled that whatever the blue meteor was had just touched down.

She ran down to the conference room and practically yelled, "He just landed near the trench! I'm not sure it is him or not but it did see a trail of blue flames from his re-entry."

They all bolted outside in time to see a huge crowd bearing a single figure on its shoulders moving slowly towards the palace. The lone figure was heavily charred but he roared, "HEY DID YOU SEE THE EXPLOSION!? IT WAS GREAT TO WATCH IT AND EVEN BETTER TO SURF IT BACK!! WHAT A RU- oh shit. DROP M-"

The focused bolt of energy attacks blew him off the top of the crowd, and sent a large number of the crowd flying. He made a fairly large jump and started running as fast as he could. His energies were flatlined from the second explosion so he couldn't fly from the angry group of scouts now taking turns to blast him. One well aimed blast hit him square in his back, knocking him on his face. He tried to roll over but four of the scouts had sat down on his back, pinning him to the ground. He started swearing when Io and Ganymede began punching every pard of the captain they could reach. He groaned and said sarcastically, "Nice to know I am missed. But you dont have to attack me in wide view of the entire city that just got saved."

"You not only blew up the enemy ships, but the moon is destroyed, half of the world's satellites have been knocked offline by the EMP, and your bloody fleet is parked on the outskirts of the city! What were you thinking?" roared Darien, swinging his longsword in emphasis.

"Well I'll tell you after I get some sleep because I am tired from the fight and need my rest. And whoever is on my back, GET OFF. I may not have the energy to do a full blown full body burn but I can still light the parts of my back you are sitting on. So unless you want a charred ass, I suggest you move."


	10. Episode 4 Part 1: Armadas and Tarydium

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 4 Part 1-

After the battle, most of the scouts were still reeling from the ending explosion and the loss of the moon. One of the things that stunned them the most though was the fact that Earth was in a war zone now. The sheer damage to the city from what was left of the NegaFleet that decided to show up on their doorstep and were blown apart for their trouble and the growing number of Solar Fleet ships being parked on the ground on the outskirts of the city said this much.

Shortly after the explosion, the captain of one of these ship, Richard, decided to "drop in". He apparently surfed the shockwave back to Earth and entered the atmosphere at a fast enough rate to create a blue re-entry corona, but the second nuclear blast in three months that he fired off nearly killed him, and it took all of his power just to survive the flames of re-entry and the hypersonic impact on his right arm, which had every bone replaced with titanium and the muscles replaced with carbon nanofiber. The resulting impact obliterated the arm but saved the captain from a crushing impact with the ground. But nothing saved him from the mob of people that called him a hero and took him to the Crystal Nucleus to receive an award from the Queen and the other scouts, which upon seeing him on the crowd's shoulders acting like nothing had happened, they attacked him and chased him to the edge of the trench dug by the crash of the Starship _Phoenix._

After the he got his nap (lasting three days), he was forced to explain to the scouts what he was thinking......

"To be honest, I was not doing any of it. It was like I was watching from afar, causing chaos with every move. But the power! It scared me from the way this 'entity' that was controlling me wielded this power. My own abilities paled in comparison, and the upshot of it all was that I liked that power. Its almost like some new disease, forcing me to crave this power and use it. I dont want to use it or like it, but I do."

They were sitting in one of the briefing rooms on the ground floor of the palace, and things were extremely busy. In the room itself, all of the scouts, some of which were in normal clothes, were all listening to Richard's story. He was leaning back in his seat, putting it on two legs. Instead of his normal armor and associated equipment, he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that read, "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies. -V"

Pluto, who was being quiet through the entire thing, began to think very fast. If he could have some basic control over all of the scouts powers and exceptional control over the scouts powers, then this being this 'Solaris', could have a power far greater than any of them. She spent the vast majority of her life guarding the door of time, and as a result she saw quite a few strange and powerful things. but she never saw anything like this. And she knew the only way to actually kill him now,should the need arise, and since he was still immortal, was to go back in time and kill him before he got his powers. And that alone would be tough.

While she thought about this, a couple of technicians came in with the captain's replacement arm on a steel trolley, along with tools and the flesh and blood to make the replacement realistic. After a few minutes, the arm was attached and he was busy testing it out to make sure it worked.

Pluto watched as Richard shot a sarcastic comment towards Io and promptly started a two on one fistfight. Jupiter tried to restrain her sons but they wouldn't have any of it and began to slug every inch of the captain they could reach from across the table they were sitting at. He managed to block several blows, and was about to deliver a painful response when Pluto's staff gave him a sharp whack upside his head, knocking him out.

He woke up within seconds, wondering why his head was hurting and he was lying on the floor. Most of the scouts had switched back to their normal selves but Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto were still in their Scout forms. Thus none of them were equipped to deliver their punishment for the captain's recent fight with Jupiter's kids. But Rei, who still knew hand to hand combat and was very good at it, did the favor for them all by delivering a painful series of blows to Richard. He started to swear with every successful blow and he was getting increasingly sore from all of the blows and his monster explosion three days previous. Finally he grabbed her foot as it was about to hit one of his ribs with his only arm and gave a sharp twist. Rei hit the ground face first which gave the battered captain the opportunity to run out the door and into his rebuilt LightningStrike fighter.

When he was gone, Mina gave a sigh and said, "You are too rough on him, Rei. Sure he blew up the moon. Sure, he had his little 'accident' with you. But I dont see the reason why you should attack him on a regular basis."

Rei glared at the slightly charred area where the captain's engines had scorched the ground on liftoff. "I just dont like him. He's rude, arrogant, thinks he's all powerful, and he thinks he can control fire better than me!"

Amy gave a quick laugh. "If I didn't know better, you could be his wife. You fight with him enough to make that entirely possible."

As she said this a fairly large drop of sweat in embarrassment went down everyone's neck. Luna, who had just padded in, heard this and said, "What? Rei is eying the captain?"

Rei hit the floor with a thud. "Its not like that! I was just saying just how much I hate the man." Luna shook her head and said, "That boy Chad was a good choice, but it didn't last long. The reason being you are too hotheaded. If you DO have eyes on him, chances are he's not looking back."

With that, she padded back out with a flick of her tail. Rei looked like Luna had just smacked her in the face. Mina glanced over at Jupiter and saw and all too familiar misty look on her face. All the others noticed it too and roared in unison, "DONT SAY IT!!!!!" She looked over at the others and chuckled. She turned back to the open door to the outside, where a soft rain was now falling and said, "He looks just like my old boyfriend." A collection of impacts sounded from behind her.

"WE TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY IT!!!!!"

xxxxxxx

The captain's rebuilt fighter didn't like him at all. The mid-size craft kept on bucking up and down wildly with each twitch of the control column and couldn't maintain a level attitude for shit. He gave it a ever so slight twitch to the left to counter the tilt and was rewarded with four barrel rolls within a thousand feet of horizontal travel. He pulled the throttles all the way back to 10 percent and engaged the air brakes, and his controls lost their extreme reactivity. He dropped the wheels and lowered the flaps to 30 percent for the approach to Crystal Tokyo International Airport. Richard gave a sigh before calling the tower to request a slot in the landing pattern. His request was denied for the slot he requested, stating that his craft was too unstable to use one of the civilian runways. He was diverted to one of the military runways three miles south. As he went on the final approach, he received a priority transmission from Commander Zimsky from the corvette _Bat out of Hell._

"_Captain, the bulk of the fleet will be dropping out with some friends on their tails. Also, the _Starcrasher_ was destroyed, and there were no survivors. This means you are now the Fleet Admiral."_

Richard let loose enough swearwords to turn the air in the cockpit a distinct red color. He noticed this and thought, "And there is where the term, 'swearing the air red' comes from." He paused before saying back into the comm, "I dont want or need to be an Admiral. I'm fine with my current position. But my second in command is quite suited to the position and he is excellent with ship to ship tactics. I'll promote him to fleet admiral and the have him demote me back to Captain, but ill be needing a new T.O. to replace him."

"_These are from the previous Fleet Admiral himself. He said you are the best suited from all of the commanding officers in the fleet."_

"Whatever. Im about to land my fighter at a base a couple miles east of the city, so unless you want me to wreck my plane, leave me alone."

His fighter began to shake as the turbulence from an old C-5 Galaxy cargo jet that was delivering supplies to the fleet's larger ships took off. He watched the huge vehicle take off and wondered if he could get his hands on several of those and convert them for space use. His thoughts were interrupted by the wheels of his fighter hitting the runway, and the screech of the hull sliding on the ground as the landing gear collapsed from the impact. He unleashed another series of swearwords as the fighter went spinning down the runway, trailing sparks from the Tarydium hull and the already tortured engines. With a loud screech, the fighter slid to a stop in the dirt beyond the runway. He sighed again, then popped the canopy and began to gather the needed materials to haul his fighter back to the base hangar. He had barely gotten out of his fighter before a trio of Jeeps pulled up and the men inside them jumped out, leveling rifles at him. Richard raised his eyebrows and asked, "Mind telling me what the guns are for? I do hold the rank of Fleet Admiral."

The men immediately saluted, some dropping their weapons to do so. Richard rolled his eyes and said, "At ease. Now what were the guns for?"

Of the men, a Colonel, said, "If you will look up sir, you will see the reason why." Richard glanced up and saw no fewer than thirty thousand ships fighting to the death in orbit. A moment later, the Solar Fleet scattered, revealing the shattered hulls of a few hundred NegaShips. Richard raised his eyebrows and said, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire... Knuckle up and prepare for a ground assault from the enemy. Things just got nastier than what I originally anticipated."

His words were unneeded. A moment later, the NegaFleet was on the run, with the Solar Fleet right on its tail. A moment later, the enemy fleet jumped to Z-Space. The fleet began to settle into orbit and the smaller vessels began to enter the atmosphere for landing and fleet resupply. One of the lower rank men said, "I guess its not needed. Your fleet is quite efficient." The Colonel was about to whack the Private with the butt of his weapon, but Richard blocked it with his sword's scabbard. The Colonel was surprised, and Richard said, "Its nothing to punish him over, and besides, he might make a good T.O." The captain turned to the Private and asked, "Whats your name kid?"

"Private Anderson, Sir."

"Well, Anderson, you are looking to be the kind of person who knows his way around a good fight. Are you good at grasping the big picture and all of the details of a fight at the same time?" asked the captain.

"Yes sir. I noticed that your fleet had many fighters guarding the larger vessels while the larger vessels did the major damage. I also noticed that the enemy ships are trying to exploit a common weakness in your ships, namely, the unshielded engines."

Richard looked impressed. He thought a moment before saying, "You have sharp eyes, Private. I'll see if I can squeeze an extra person into the officer training schools on one of the cruisers."

He walked back to his fighter and opened up a com line to Mercury's computer. After several seconds, her face appeared on his screen. Her face turned so red so fast he thought she was about to faint. A moment later, she cut the com line. Richard couldn't help but laugh. The group of men out side his fighter got back into their jeeps and drove off, leaving the captain on the blast pad of the runway. He sighed, before flipping the arming switches to re-light his turbines and get back to the palace. The upper engines lit without too much trouble, but the lower engines threatened to explode several times before they restarted, spewing parts and sparks out the back end. The anti-gravity generators came online, sucking up every drop of power in his fighter before lifting it off the ground. The fighter spun to face the city, and then all four engines roared, the lower ones spewing more parts and flames out of the outer exhaust baffles, before it sluggishly accelerated to the needed speed for horizontal flight. Richard cut the lower engines just as the lower starboard engine exploded in a shower of charred parts. He gave a sigh and said, "This damn thing really hates me."

xxxxxxx

Amy almost dropped her computer the moment she saw Richard's face in it. She slammed it shut and tried to act like nothing had happened, but everyone in the room knew exactly who it was because her face was a brilliant red color. Rei walked up behind her and said, "I'm not the one who has a crush on him." This time she really did drop it, and it shattered into nearly a dozen parts, the screen cracking in three places. Lita came around the corner shepherding a dozen servants, all bearing a massive tray containing one or more things that were the result of Lita's excellent cooking. She said as Rei delivered her little jab at Amy, "What? Amy has a crush on someone?" Amy chose this moment to bolt from the room, but as she got to the door, the captain walked through, and she ran right into him, knocking him over and falling on top of him. Richard groaned and then said, "Amy? You mind getting off of me?"

Lita cackled, which was quite unusual for her, and then said, "Well, I thought it was about time for Amy to start hitting on someone. She has yet to pick up a boyfriend for more than two weeks."

By this time, though, Amy had bolted from the room, leaving several of the others fighting not to burst out laughing. Richard glanced through the door which Amy had disappeared through and coughed, apparently deciding to keep what thought that was about to come blasting off of his mind locked away. His thoughts were interrupted by the smell of the food on the table, and his nose was sniffing like crazy. Serena couldn't help but burst out laughing, and soon everyone in the room followed suit, mainly because it was funny the way his nose was sucking in as much of the smell of food as remotely possible. He found a seat near the vast majority of the meat and began pulling as much towards him as he could. Lita called for the servants to begin hauling out more food, for the captain had just finished the turkey and ham and was busy working on two full racks of ribs.

But there was two people at the table who didn't find this funny at all. Setsuna and Hotaru were both glaring at the captain with as much contempt as was possible, and when paused to regain his breath, he noticed their glares. He attempted to swallow the mass of food in his mouth and after three tries, pulled it off. He coughed to clear his throat and asked, "What crawled up your asses and died?"

The change of mood at the table was instant. Everyone's glare was on the captain. And he didn't figure out why until he noticed just how much of the food at the table he had consumed. He rolled his eyes and said, "The last time I've eaten _anything_ was almost a week ago. I dont eat because I use very little of the energy I get from food, but lack of it for too long will wreak it's havoc. Its why I just ate everything at the table. If I hadn't, my energies which are still recharging, would have sucked all of the energy I use to sustain my life processes away. YOU try two nearly back to back explosions on the scale of a star blowing up and see how long you last."

"Not eating anything in week..." The sarcasm in Setsuna's voice was quite noticeable. "I dont think that exactly compares to you crashing your ship on the city, blowing up the moon, nearly getting Lita's children killed, and parking your ENTIRE FLEET ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY!!! And then you INHALE all of the food at the table and act like you did nothing. Are you INSANE?!?!"

The captain paused, and then got up. As he walked by a still fuming Setsuna and said in a quiet voice, "You dont know what its like to truly be immortal. It gets to your head and re-writes your way of thinking. My presence is no longer required here, if I was to go by the way you are all glaring at me. Very well. By midnight tonight, my fleet will be five thousand light years from here. We will not be coming back."

As he walked out the door, he activated his com to the fleet and said in a slightly pained voice, "Prepare for departure. Our destination is the Serlan System in the Perseus arm." He paused before saying, "Any who wish to remain behind here on Earth may do so. Just dont stay in the city. The Queen and her court are getting a little finicky about anyone who is part of the fleet."

He got into his fighter, and after a moments hesitation, which he used to glance one more time at the tower which had become more than just an elaborate building to him. Sure it was a fairly simple structure design wise, but there was a power there that wasn't of death or destruction, or of the planets themselves. It was a power that surpassed them all, but even after four months of being within it's grasp, he still didn't understand it. "No matter," he thought. "It wont matter to me in eight hours anyways." With a roar, his fighter took off as Lita, Amy, Mina and Michelle came tearing out of the front doors to stop him from leaving.

A moment later, another roar answered the roar of the LighningStrike's engines, one that drowned them out and deafened the entire city. It was the fleet launching. Tens of thousands of ships took off, all except one ship. A small corvette was parked outside the airport, all of the needed materials to maintain it either onboard the vessel or lying on the ground outside the hull. Painted on the side was a crescent moon, eclipsed by the earth and illuminated by a white ring. On the landing ramp, there was a handwritten note. It had one line

"Just in case one of you wanted to pay a visit."

But meanwhile, the fleet was just attaining orbit, although due to the fleet's sheer size, several vessels had to divert to a different orbital path in order to keep the equatorial belt from becoming a demolition derby of oversize vessels. After a tense moment which three destroyers nearly collided, the fleet was in orbit and preparing to leave Earth. A trio of stealth craft pulled ahead of the fleet and transitioned to Z-Space, checking to see if the destination was all clear. Barely thirty minutes after they jumped, they dropped out in the atmosphere, creating a flaming trail of shredded ship parts.

The three vessels had been annihilated into scrap parts. A moment later, a horde of ships dropped out of Z-Space, all sporting severe damage and not in any condition to fight the Solar Fleet. The captain got one good look at the ships and knew the war with the Negaverse just got sour. The ships that had just dropped out weren't part of the Solar Fleet, but part of the mighty Andromeda Armada.

Unlike the ships of the Solar Fleet, which all looked somewhat like avian creatures (dragons, birds, just about anything that flies. The singleship fighters were an exception to this. They looked like the ancient SR-71 Blackbirds, only a little smaller.), the Andromedan ships all looked something like whales and other aquatic life forms. The Solar Fleet's ships all had a black/dark gray with red trim paint job, but the Andromedans used light gray with sky blue trim. Thousands of the ships blasted out of the Z-Space portal, most sporting severe damage and in an extreme case, came flying out in six separate pieces, pulled along in the wake of the mass transition to the alternate realm. Almost as soon as they appeared, the Solar Fleet scattered, allowing the Andromeda Armada to blow between them and arc around the backside of the planet.

Richard watched this in fear, knowing what was about to attack next. And sure enough, a few thousand NegaShips dropped out of Z-Space and was greeted by a searing wall of plasma and the hundreds of MAC shells that followed in their wake. A cloud of Stinger ship to ship missiles finished off the pulverized attack group, blowing their shattered crystalline hulls into the atmosphere or into the ring system formed by debris from the last space battle. All this happened in less than ten seconds. A moment later a Andromedan shuttle pulled up thirty feet of the bridge of the _Phoenix_. It sent a single text message into the _Phoenix_.

Our fleet is severely damaged. Please provide assistance.


	11. Episode 4 Part 2: Armadas and Tarydium

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 4 Part 2-

"Okay, okay so I lied. But having a large chunk of the Andromeda armada drop out of Z-Space looking like they just got their sorry asses kicked and begging us to protect them is a little too strange!"

Richard was back on the ground, fleet and all, discussing the recent turn of events. Mercury had a new computer that shamed her old one and was busy checking out the ship profiles from the Andromeda Fleet. Mars was busy helping the tens of thousands of wounded from the quick battle between the hybrid Solar/Andromeda super fleet and a swarm of NegaShips. The other Scouts were also helping the wounded, but the royal family and Mercury were getting briefed by the captain about what he saw and what he knew what was coming.

"Ok. From what I saw up there, the Andromeda armada had the living shit beat out of it by the Negaverse in Z-Space while they were coming here to this galaxy to hide, and the Andromedans are no slouches in space combat. Apparently, their entire galaxy has been captured by the Negaverse, and their empire has fled to this galaxy for protection and to attempt to rebuild their civilization. Protection, I can give them, provided they aren't the backstabbing scum I know them to be. As for rebuilding their civilization, that is up to the two of you but in their fleet's current condition, it would be impossible to capture the galaxy. But there is another problem that is going to have to be resolved by tonight."

"And that is?" Serena's voice was colder than usual. She had become steadily colder to the captain ever since the moon was cracked into a half dozen pieces. He locked his gaze, which briefly shifted to red, with her blue one and held it, but the Queen was unfazed from his unsaid threat. After almost five minutes which the energy from the two most powerful people in the galaxy became quite visible, Serena folded, unable to hold the energy back much more. The Imperium Crystal absorbed the bolt, protecting the queen from the nasty scar the bolt was intended to inflict. But the captain, who hadnt seen one of the Imperium Crystals in over 5000 years said, "Well, I should have known the Queen had something like that up her sleeve, but believe it or not, that isn't the most powerful of the Crystals. In fact, it is the weakest one."

The reaction from the other end of the table was instant. The blast of energy as well as the sword would have instantly killed a normal person, but the captain blocked one and absorbed the other, sending the blade into the wall. He paused before shooting a poisonous glare back down the length of the table and said, "If you are done trying to kill me, I will explain. The Imperium Crystal you wear in that brooch was the last one of nearly two dozen. The first one is something that changed the galaxy forever, and the last one finished the work of the series. I carry the first one." He reached into his armor and pulled out a long chain, which at the end was another Imperium Crystal. The stone was about an inch and a half long and in the shape of a teardrop. Instead of being clear, it was a deep ruby red. The crystal had a massive crack in it, splitting the stone in half. The captain broke the chain and sent the crystal sliding down the table, coming to rest in front of Darien. He picked the stone up, noting that even though it was damaged, power still radiated from it. Serena tugged it out of his grasp and examined it. A moment later she was blasted out of the seat and through the door, and both men saw why. A bright ring has formed above the stone, and it had blasted her when her own stone got too close. Mercury chose this moment to say, "The stones react to each other in the same way their carriers would."

Serena staggered back in, clutching the side of her head where Solaris has slugged her from his home inside of the stone. She saw the bright ring glowing above the stone and moment later, it shot back across the table where the chain repaired itself around the captain's neck. Richard paused and then said, the surprise evident in his voice, "So THATS where the bastard was hiding. I need to chew him out later. The crystals were once part of a much larger stone called the Crystal of Life. I have not seen this stone so dont ask me what it looks like. From what I know, the original stone was the reason life came into being in this universe. For a time, there was no evil, no wars, everyone was happy. That changed when visitors from the Negaverse got their sick hands on it. The resulting war between light and darkness lasted for tens of thousands of years, and when it was over, only the galaxies which the stone resided in still contained life, but there were still evil presences in these galaxies. When the primary war was over, it was decided by the survivors to shatter the Crystal of Life into the Elemental Crystals, and the only way to use the Crystal of Life is to reform it from the Elemental Crystals. The one I carry is the Crystal of Starfire, and home to that little weasel Solaris (Solaris: "Oh can it you douchebag"). It is the most powerful, and that is because the stone actually controls the stars themselves, and allows the carrier to channel the power of the stars into offensive, defensive, and supportive attacks and abilities."

Mercury paused as she digested all of this, and the others were doing the same. Pluto, who was still in a bad mood with the captain, gave a snort and said, "So you think we are supposed to believe this 'story'? I dont buy it at all."

Richard gave an odd cough that sounded an awful lot like "asshole!" before saying, "Believe what you want, but there are several artifacts which survive to this day from that era. One of those is your staff. Another is my sword. When the crystals and the artifacts come together, the Crystal of Life will be reborn. If light gets the crystal, the darkness will be swept away and all will be as it was before. But if darkness get the stone, all as we know it will be consumed forever."

Saturn sent her Silence Glaive sliding down the table and asked, "Why didn't you say mine?

Richard picked up the weapon, wary of the super sharp blade and proceeded to examine it. He ran his finger along the edge of the blade and found what he was looking for: a flaw.

"This is not the real Silence Glaive. This is actually a skilled forgery done to prevent the complete and total destruction of Earth should an enemy get it. I know this because of two reasons; One, all Artifacts are impervious to damage. And two, the smith responsible for forging this weapon forged my entire melee arsenal." He sent the weapon skidding back down the table.

"But the problem that needs solving today is the fact that even after several thousand years, me and the Andromeda Imperial Fleet Commander still ah, lets just say we hate each other with a passion. When I see him, dont be too surprised if I draw my sword and proceed to try to kick his ass."

Almost as if that was some cue, the doors flew open and the Imperial Commander of the Andromeda Armada, Fleet Commander Korlan, walked in. He was a huge man, a solid foot taller than the captain and burly with it. His dark blue uniform looked like it was about to shred at any moment from containing his chest and the two massive bladed pistols on his belt indicated he was good in both hand to hand and ranged combat. His face was covered in numerous scars and his steel gray gaze gave the impression that this was someone who could kill you on the spot when he so desired.

Richard swore under his breath, and muttered, "And speaking of the devil..." He stood up and turned to face Korlan, who locked his gray eyes with the captain's brown ones. After a few seconds, Korlan grinned and said, "Still as cocky as ever, eh captain? Im not here to fight, but if its a fight you want, you will eventually get one."

As Korlan walked by, Richard muttered, "Its now Fleet Admiral, jackass."

Korlan walked around the briefing table and to everyone's suprise, bowed before the Queen. He said in this position, "I hereby pledge myself and all under my command to your cause in defeating the Negaverse. Our homes and lives have been disrupted by them and we wish to make our new home in your galaxy."

Serena gave a uncharacteristically cold laugh, and while she did this, the captain shot a terse telepathic message to Darien.

I dont like the way the queen has changed over the past few weeks. Make sure she doesn't do anything too stupid or else ill have to deal with her in my fashion. An image of Solaris and Serena going one on one flashed through his skull. Darien visibly jumped, and shot back, I was beginning to wonder about her actions too. Ill keep a good eye on her. But if she does do something dumb, try not to kill her.

They were both distracted by Korlan getting blown through the wall. Before Serena could finish him off, a wall of flame erupted between her and the knocked out Imperial Commander.

She tried to hit the captain with another powerful blast from her crystal, but the energy blazed around him, carving an impressive crater in the wall behind him. He gave a sigh and was about to counter-attack when an abrupt fog flooded the room. Richard, his powers being based off of flames, bolted for the door and managed to escape the cloud.

Inside, Serena snapped back to her senses and saw the devastation wreaked by her in her own rage. She hit her knees in shock and almost ended up face-first in the dirty pool of water from the busted piping in the walls. Darien grabbed her and flipped her on to her back with some effort.

Richard yelled back into the room from the courtyard outside, "Uhhhh posturing done? Good. I didn't fly all over the galaxy for the past five thousand years for you idiots to fight now. We need to get the other Elemental Crystals, and the job will not be easy. Provided the Negaverse can keep their heads in their asses for a few more weeks, (Jupiter chuckled, and the others grinned at this) I can get the necessary research done. As for the texts that tell us where the lost crystals are, that in itself is a problem. I have maybe two or three tomes which might have something, but I know that is nowhere near enough."

Korlan thumped his chest and said, "We will protect Earth and the other planets. They are the only homes we know now. We will not fail in our duty."

Richard raised his eyebrows. "Oh really? You and what fleet? Last I checked, your 'fleet' got its ass handed to itself, most of your other vessels are civilian vessels, and your weapons are inferior to the weapons in the Solar Fleet. I dont see you succeeding at all, with that raggedy fleet of yours and all. Hell I expect your fleet to be nothing more than cannon fodder for my ships."

Korlan blanched at this, then drew his pistols, ejected the clips, and charged towards the captain. Richard drew his own weapon and parried the first strikes, then began slashing and stabbing with just as much energy as Korlan. Korlan jumped up and aimed a brutal swing at the captain's neck, which was turned aside by the sword. Then the captain dropped to his knees, rolled underneath Korlan, and hit his groin with the broadside of the sword. Korlan almost collapsed in agony, but recovered, spun, and threw one of his pistols towards the captain. Richard caught it neatly by the grip, grabbed the blade and snapped it in two, before flying back at Korlan's throat with the sword. Both of them jumped onto the table of the now vacant room and began to duel with earnest. Richard lunged and managed to nick Korlan's right arm with the tip of the sword. Korlan yelped, and then did a backflip to avoid the deadly arc of the sword. Richard, not expecting the sword to hit nothing but air, stumbled forward. Korlan ditched his other pistol and smashed a knee into Richard's face, breaking his nose instantly. As Korlan was about to deliver the final blow, Richard charged and rammed Korlan in the gut, knocking him off of the table and into one of the wooden chairs, crushing it under almost a quarter of a ton of weight. Richard rolled to the side, swiping up the sword as he did. Korlan rolled back onto his own feet, a little dazed from the impact. His right arm was broken, and he had a slight limp. Richard watched Korlan walk over to one of the discarded pistols picked it up and holstered it. He turned around and without explanation, saluted.

Richard was stunned for a moment, and paid for his stupidity dearly. Korlan ran up to the captain and slugged him in the gut, causing the captain to double over in pain and lack of air. Korlan drew his pistol and was about to run Richard through the back of his neck with the blade when a small ball of lightning hit him in the small of his back, sending him flying. Richard kneeled over and curled up in a ball in agony. He hadn't been in such pain in a long time.

Jupiter's hands were still smoking from the energy blast. No one in the room had heard her unleash her attack. She walked up to both of the men lying on the floor in pain and said rather distainfuly, "Well I hope you two idiots are done trying to kill each other, because these 'Elemental Crystals' need to be recovered. So stop screwing around and do what is needed to be done."

Both of the men got up, shot each other fairly dirty looks, and walked out the door into the courtyard. Korlan got back inside his shuttle, assisted by two other men who strained under his bulk. Richard climbed into his LightningStrike fighter, and sat there for several minutes, checking his busted nose, then took off for the _Phoenix_.

On his way back to the ship and the medical suite, several of the Andromedan fighters and cargo ships pulled up behind him and followed him back to the ship. There was nothing wrong with this, as several other clusters of vessels were also taking off and landing from the _Phoenix_, which was now the flagship of the entire armada. As Richard backed his fighter into the docking bay, he waited for a prowler (small but insanely fast stealth ship) fly by and out of the ship to dock with the underside of the upper hull.

When he finally docked, Richard was greeted by Io, Ganymede and Callisto, the three of which Richard had told them to show up when he got back so their training could begin. Io and Ganymede both needed to learn sword fighting as an integral part of their training, but Callisto, who was stronger then most girls and a bit of a tomboy, wanted to learn swordplay so she could enjoy the fury of up close and personal combat, as well as learning how to use a sniper rifle.

Io noticed the captain's busted nose and asked, "What the hell happened to you? Mom kick your ass? Always thought she would one day." Callisto smacked her brother on the back of his head and started a brawl which Callisto ended up winning. Ganymede and Richard began to laugh hard. There he was, the toughest of all four kids, and he got lit up in front of at least two dozen spectators.

"A good dose of humility always comes in handy every once in a while." Richard could barely contain himself. Even Solaris had his piece to say, and chose the best moment to say it, namely when Io was getting back up. "That damn marid Oblivion put up a better fight than you. You think you are tough, but when you get lit up by a girl, you obviously aren't THAT tough." By this point the men and women surrounding the impromptu combat arena could barely breathe they were laughing so hard. Richard sniggered a little more and said, "A. It wasnt you mother that lit me up. B. your mother couldn't light me up without the help of the others. And C. your sister just lit you up effortlessly. So next time you taunt me, keep in mind of today's lesson in humility. Now, if the sibling rivalry battles are over for today, we can get going. But I need to get my nose fixed first." Callisto stalked off to the weapons loading area, where four dozen missiles were getting loaded onto a older Thunderstrike fighter (the difference between the Thunder and Lightning series is that the ThunderStrikes had a narrower wingspan, a shortened length, only two engines, and a smaller weapon capacity. They were still in service because _nothing_ could outrun one, or outmaneuver one for that matter.) She spoke quietly with one of the technicians and the dockmaster glanced over at the captain, who was busy getting his nose fixed by a medic. The aged dockmaster nodded, and then began to roar orders at the loading crew to strip the fighter down and add a remote piloting system, while at the same time digging out the transmitter for the said system.

By this time, Richard's nose was fixed, but there were still a faint trail of blood from where it was bleeding. Io glanced at the fighter, which was now taking off and entering the traffic pattern to leave the ship and said, "i think that this training session might have a little more to it than it should....."

He had no idea just how right he was.


	12. Episode 4 Part 3: Armadas and Tarydium

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 4 Part 3-

"There are two basic forms of combat: ranged combat, mainly involving a projectile or energy bolt of some form used to attack your opponent. The other main type is melee combat. This includes but isn't limited to hand to hand and sword to sword. A big issue about going sword to sword is range. If you get too close, your blade cannot move the way you want it without smashing into yourself or a obstacle like the ground. Get too far, and you are either hitting air or your opponents blade, and nothing else."

Richard, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto were all in the sparring arena on the _Phoenix_. Due to their inexperience in combat, it was recommended by the captain to Jupiter that he train her children in the basics of hand to hand combat as well as swordplay. One major obstacle though was that Richard lost all of his sparring weapons in the brief fight that followed the crash of the _Phoenix_. He glanced over to the yawning hole where the sparring weapons used to rest and sighed. "Well I dont know that to tell you all, except your training is going to be fairly painful. So if you want to back out, nows your chance."

Io took a swipe at Richard's head, catching him off guard, and sending the captain to his knees. He attempted to put his knee into Richards freshly healed nose, but found his knee in considerable agony, as well as most of his leg. Richard returned to his feet. "You know, its kind of rude to do that, and besides, I have several thousands of years combat experience over you. Don't try again."

Io winced as he got back up, cursing quietly under his breath as he did. Ganymede, however, had his nose literally buried in the munitions locker, and a moment later he pulled out a minigun, complete with a respectable amount of ammo on the belt. Richard rolled his eyes. "Its good for a target rich free for all, where aim doesn't matter for shit, but a true marksman uses one of these." He reached in and yanked out a long barreled sniper rifle. Behind him, Callisto kicked her brother in the small of his back for good measure before joining them, activating the homing transmitter while she did. She tugged the rifle out of the captain's grasp and sighted on a target outside the hole nearly a mile away.

The captain dug around in the weapons locker and dug out a clip of 130x25mm ammo for the rifle and tossed it to Callisto. She slotted it in and racked the bolt once, loading the firing chamber. Richard whispered to Ganymede, "You think she can hit it?"

Ganymede shot the captain a incredulous look. "My sister has been known to nail tiny targets a quarter of a mile away with a bolt of ice. She could probably shoot this ship out of the air, she is so accurate. I know for a fact-" His next words were cut off from a loud series of cracks from the rifle. A moment later, a burning (and outdated) Thunderstrike fighter tumbled into the sparring room before exploding into a ball of flame.

Richard glanced at Callisto. "Damn you do have good aim. Consider the rifle yours. As for you two boys, you get to learn the art of swordplay. No sniper rifles for you." Callisto grinned and stalked off of the sparring deck, rifle in a bag across her back and the ammo and other stuff for it in a small duffel bag in her other hand.

Io by this point had recovered enough to get up and limp over to the locker, where Ganymede had dug out a large yellow weapon. Unlike most of the other guns in there, this one was short and had a broad gap between the barrel and the loading mechanism. He looked harder and found a large shell, about three inches across, and slotted it into the clip below the back half of the weapon. The ammo counter lit up, signaling that the weapon was loaded and ready to fire. Richard took a respectful step back from Ganymede, who raised his eyebrows. "What, you chicken, captain?"

Richard visibly gulped. "Not really. Its just that it hurts like hell to receive a point blank blast from that Flak Cannon. I got the idea for making it from one of the many computer games I play, and the whole idea of it is if you are close enough to touch it, you're already dead. Ive seen those things tear enemies apart with a single shot, and more than once I have been on the receiving end of that thing. So in a sense, yes I am a little scared of that thing. But I didn't bring you here to check out my guns. See that locker over there?" The said locker was set into the wall and had a pair of doors. "Go grab a weapon that you like. If you are good enough in today's sparring session, you can keep it. Just dont tell your mother. The last thing I need right now is a bolt of lightning crawling up my ass." Both of them chuckled and opened the weapons locker, only to have their jaws slam into the deck a moment later in shock.

The locker was loaded with thousands of weapons. Swords, staff weapons, knives, axes, spears, pole axes, tridents, you name it. All of them were polished to a brilliant sheen, and a good deal of them had very elaborate scabbards or sheaths. Richard grabbed their jaws and slammed them back into place, snapping Io and Ganymede out of their stupor. Richard walked down to the staff weapon section and selected a two bladed wooden staff. Both blades were sharpened to a razor point and gleamed in the light of the plasma conduit lighting the room. Io glanced around and drifted towards the long knives section, and eventually picked out a pair of blades, ones which the captain called, "The Devil's Batons". Each blade was dull on one side but on the other the blade was as sharp as a laser beam. The handles were placed about four inches from one end, giving the user the option of a long slashing blade or a short stabbing knife. Ganymede drifted around for quite a while before finally picking out a long/broadsword hybrid, thin and light, but unbelievably strong.

"All of these weapons are of forged Tarydium, which means that no matter how hard the edges of our weapons come together, they will not dull. They are impervious to heat and magnetism, but are light enough to be worn quite comfortably. Now, if you will follow me, we can get some basic protection so we dont end up carving each other to ribbons."

After a few minutes, they were decked out in light carbon composite armor plating, which covered their arms, legs, chest, back, torso, and groin. What wasn't covered in plating was shielded by Tarydium chain mail.

By this point there were at least a four dozen spectators in the arena stands, and they roared their approval as soon as all three entered. Io and Ganymede damn near pissed themselves but the captain waved and motioned for silence. Those in the stands who didn't quiet down were silenced by their neighbors.

When all three made it to the middle of the arena, Richard began to spin his staff in complex motions, causing the air to sing with the passage of the blades. Io and Ganymede drew their weapons, both of them scared shitless that the captain would humiliate them in front of the rapidly growing crowd, which now included the entire royal court and leading officers from both fleets.

Richard noticed this and shot towards Io, Your ass is mine!

Io snarled, Your head will be on a pike before I'm done!

Ganymede added, Your bones will be powder once I'm through with you!

And before the captain could shoot back something else, they both charged. He swung his staff at Io's legs but hit nothing but air, for Io had jumped and was slashing like a madman. Richard deflected the blows easily, then rolled to the left, allowing Ganymede's broadsword to smash into the deck. Io cursed, and made another attempt at taking the captain's head off. Richard chose that moment to leap on top of a pillar that had popped up out of the floor. Io smashed bodily into the pillar, and fell flat on his face. Ganymede felt his temper surge to the surface, and his dormant powers erupted with considerable force, causing a raging hailstorm to burst into being in the sparring arena. A particularly respectable stone whacked the captain on the back of his head and sent him flying off of the pillar, and only quick action saved him from getting impaled on Io's knives.

Io growled, and then his own temper hit the limit. A searing ball of lava appeared between the tips of his knives, and a moment later rocketed towards the captain, but the the captain sucked all of the heat out of the fireball and it hit the deck as a basketball sized chunk of granite. Before Io could charge up again and blast the captain, a particularly sizable ball of plasma enveloped Io in a pillar of flame. As the captain turned to take Ganymede out of the fight, a red hot blade thunked solidly into the back of his armor, pushing all the way through and burying itself near the spine. The captain roared in agony, but before he could yank the blade out, an ice spear carved another hole in the armor, this time going clean through the shoulder pauldron and severing the cables in the prosthetic arm, rendering it useless. But the captain would not go down so easily. A hail of fireballs hit Io in the chest, igniting the armor and blowing him into a pillar. Io ripped the burning chest plate off and hurled it at the captain, who leaped over it. Ganymede was now completely encased in a swirling tornado of ice, which compressed itself, wrapped around the sword, and changed it. Instead of being a glimmering sword of metal, the blade was now made of ice, a light blue color, and just as sharp. Richard finally manged to rip the knife out of his back, and hurled it with all of his strength at Io's head. Io caught it and proceeded to change.

All the while this increasing display of power and skill played out, Jupiter was stunned. She never knew Io could control fire and earth, and that Ganymede had incredible control over ice. When Ganymede's weapon transformed into a ice sword, she damn near had a fit. All the time the 300 strong crowd roared and groaned as one. But when Io actually began to transform, she knew there was no need with training.

Io's skin rapidly gained the texture of red hot rock, and heat began to rise off of him in waves. The carbon composite armor, being flammable at high temperatures, instantly burst into flame and disintegrated. The chain mail shirt glowed and then fused with his skin, forming a near impenetrable armor. Io's eyes were obscured by flames, and his skin steamed. Richard paused long enough in his duel with Ganymede to watch the transformation. He made a mental note to research Tarydium's effect on the scouts and vice versa, and jumped just in time to avoid the river of lava that rocketed his way. He knew he couldn't hold back Solaris much longer and knew it was either finish the brawl or let Solaris take them down in his own fashion, namely a big explosion.

He mentally summoned the Solar Sword and ignited it as soon as the worn hilt hit his palm. Then he went at it again with Ganymede. All the while Io continued to get bigger, and not even the nasty hailstorm could fully dilute the heat radiating from his new form. Ice and Fire blades clashed, sending a shower of sparks all over the place. Ganymede went for a swipe at the prosthetic arm but was blocked, and soon found himself on the defensive, blocking a hail of blows from the flaming Solar Sword. A moment later, the captain did a complicated twist of his own sword and yanked Ganymede's free, sending the razor sharp blade into the steel wall nearby. He turned just in time to see the Solar Sword darken and smash into his face broadside, knocking him out instantly.

By this time however, Io had quadrupled in size, and now towered almost twenty feet high. He made the captain look small, and without the cooling effect of Ganymede's hailstorm, the temperature in the sparring arena rapidly climbed. Richard debated what way which would take Io out and force him to leave his current form when he hit the solution.

Io was uncontrollably throwing out energy, causing his energies to rapidly drain away. If the captain could accelerate this process, Io would have to either drop out of his transformation or die. It was a risky plan, but at that moment, the captain wasn't too picky. Not only would it work, but it would allow the captain to stock up on much needed energy.

He began to absorb all of the heat within the room, and within seconds the temperature had dropped below freezing and continued to plummet. Io, now completely transformed, began to walk towards the captain. His two knives had now evolved into huge stone swords, both on fire and radiating heat. The temperature in the room fell below -200 degrees F and the nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and hydrogen in the air liquified. The spectators, because they were in an airtight room, were unaffected by the sudden drop in temperature. But the sudden chill and the subsequent condensation of all the air put both of the remaining combatants in danger. While the captain could survive without oxygen for the better part of ten minutes, Io, even in his new form, would last maybe two minutes. But the sheer cold began to cause Io to cool down, and his stone swords were extinguished. He began to back out of his transformation and as soon as he did the cold hit like a fist. Before he could gather his wits, a piece from the wrecked fighter brained him on his head, and he crashed to the deck without a sound.

The air temperature was now roughly two hundred fifty degrees below zero and the air was condensing and freezing fast. Richard then unleashed a large fraction of the stored heat, and the liquid air quickly boiled, but even so the ambient temperatures remained around minus ten degrees.

Richard whipped out his comlink and roared, "Emergency medical team to the sparring room medical suite ASAP. We have a problem down here." Jupiter came flying out of the spectator box and was about to blast the captain when he vanished in a burst of flame, taking Io and Ganymede with him. A moment later there was a fairly loud bang from three decks above, and Jupiter surmised that he had warped to the medical bay. She found the turbolift directly to the medical bay in the sparring arena wall and got up there just in time to see Io get rushed into the emergency room.

Richard was sitting in the waiting room with Ganymede, and both of them were discussing what had just happened in hushed voices. Jupiter grabbed the captain's left ear and twisted with all her strength, causing him to yelp in pain.

"You mind telling me what just happened in there captain?"

Richard attempted to pull his ear out of her grasp, but she held on. Richard yelped with a particularly painful twist and said, "If I knew what the hell just happened I would tell you. All I know is that the Tarydium used in the weapons and armor reacted to Io's and Ganymede's inherent powers. It tripled Ganymede's control over ice and gave him that ice sword. Io somehow gained the ability to transform into that big lava creature, and the metal has fused to his skeletal structure. The medical team is trying to figure a way to get it off and out, because Io, if I'm correct, has yet to stop growing. As for his weapons, they have turned into onyx swords, enabling him to channel his abilities through them. Now will you let go of my ear?" Jupiter let go, and Richard's right ear was a bright red color. He rubbed to get the blood flowing out before sitting down in a seat. He glanced at a nearby clock. "I suggest you sit down. It will take them hours to get all of the metal out."

Several hours later, a doctor came out and announced, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the operation has failed. The Tarydium has fused so completely with his bones that the only way to get it out is to take out the bones and grind them into powder. The good news is that because it is so much a part of his bones, many of them are damn near unbreakable, and any defects that may happen with the metal in his bones is physically impossible, mainly due to the fact that for some reason, the Tarydium is acting like it is _alive_."

Richard's jaw hit the deck with a thud in shock. The metal was _alive?_ That was impossible, but then again, he didn't know all of the supermetal's secrets. Lita, having dropped out of her scout form, let loose a sigh of relief. "When will he be awake?" She asked.

The medical officer consulted his data pad. "We have him under a chemically induced coma. He will be awakened in three days to give his body a shot at healing itself from what we had to do to him."

Before Lita could say anything else, Amy barged in with an ancient looking tome. She slammed it down on the table and said, "I think I have located the position of the next crystal, the Thunder Stone. If I am reading this right it says, '_The King of the Planets holds the stone of Power in his heart, and only thy righteous may claim it.' _The book also mentions that there is some sort of monster guarding the stone, to _'keep those of wikedness away from thy stone.'_ Translation: Its at the core of the planet of Jupiter, and the stone is guarded by a monster to protect any evil person from getting the stone and using it to cause havoc."

Richard grinned. This was the best news he had heard all day. He got up and gave a long stretch to keep his muscles in his back from cramping up before saying, "Well, once the kid has recovered, we will go after this thing and get it before the Negaverse somehow cracks through the defenses."


	13. Episode 5 Part 1: Trip through Hell

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 5 Part 1-

Well, life has gotten the better of me, and even though this has been on my rig for the better part of a year, I have finally managed to get around to getting this up to the site. And thanks to all who read this and favorite it. It means I am not the epitome of suck I thought I was.

Now, on with the story. (the music played off the captains laptop is Endless Fall by nal1200)

* * *

Jedite went sailing across the room and hit the wall with a sickening crunch. No less than four afrits were attacking him, and in his weakened state, he couldn't fight them off. He attempted to make a run for the exit but was rebuffed by a dark energy field.

"You have failed me, Jedite. I tried my best to be patient with you, tried to let you recover your blunders with a victory. But you lost every battle, from the first battle near Earth to the ambush on the Andromeda Fleet." The afrits suddenly backed away, obeying an undetected command. "I am merciful, however. You will have one last chance at getting rid of the Scouts and the enemy fleets forever. But I want to deal with the captain personally. Bring him here alive."

Jedite got up, coughing up blood, and kneeled as best as a broken leg would allow one.

"Mighty Shadow Master, I have news. There is a legend of a certain crystal called the Crystal of Life. Whosoever controls this Crystal can control life in the entire universe, and not only that, but can mold the universe in whatever way or form they so desire. My spies have sent me word that the Scouts and the captain are preparing to acquire the crystals that make up this stone. Two are already in their possession, the Imperium Crystal, and the Crystal of Starfire. The next one on their hit list is one called the Thunder Stone, located on their largest planet. I am requesting permission to send a demi-god there to capture the stone and kill them when they get there."

A withered and ancient face appeared out of the shadows, almost like a skull more than anything else. The eyes were replaced by a pair of floating red balls of energy. From this the evil voice issued, the mouth not moving.

"Hmmmmm." The red balls of light flared in their sockets. "So you want to send a demi-god to kill them? Hahaha, I like your style, although I dont like the repetitive failure. Very well. You will get Raiju, the god of thunder. He should be fairly easy to summon, provided you avoid the thunderbolts. Do not fail me this time, Jedite. If you do fail, you seek death on returning here. You may go."

Jedite bowed lower, and then used what little energy he had left to warp to the nearest medical facility. After getting his leg healed in an instant by a demon, he headed to one of the summoning chambers. The room was enormous, and there were tens of thousands of pentacles (five sided stars within two circles surrounded by runes) of various sizes, ranging from a few feet across for summoning imps and foliots, to three hundred feet across for the most powerful marids and demi-gods. He headed to one of these, and with a flourish, began the summoning, speaking in Latin (this is necessary because summoning originated on earth but was quickly abandoned, but the rules set then still applied.).

Five minutes in a howl and a blast of wind roared through the chamber, disrupting other summonings and wreaking havoc. Barely thirty seconds after that, thunderbolts began blasting through the center of the pentacle, and with a snarl, Raiju appeared. The demi-god was in the shape of a massive wolf, with lightning crackling in his fur and a powerful gale blasting out of his jaws.. The giant wolf padded to the edge of the inner ring and snarled at Jedite, who didn't even flinch, despite the one hundred thirty mile an hour gale coming from the wolf's jaws.

Jedite gave the giant wolf a dry look before saying, "Mighty Raiju, your services are required."

The wolf snorted, sending lightning crackling around the chamber. He spoke in a deep voice, one that was smoother than silk, yet crackled with energy. "If I was not needed then you would have not summoned me. What is your 'requirement'?"

Jedite paused. "There are several humans trying to go after an object called the Thunder Stone. Capture this stone and bring it to me. Kill the Scouts, but leave the human commonly called my his rank, the 'captain', back to me alive. His real name is Richard, so you know who he is. He has notable power, power enough to kill the-"

"Marid Oblivion, yes I know," finished the demon. "We damn near had a party in the Other Place when he was killed. Not the most popular of demons as far as I was concerned. Very well, I will do as you command." The wolf paused, sniffing the air. "Is that fear I smell?" he locked his gaze with Jedite's, who backed up a few steps. The wolf grinned, before vanishing in a flash of thunder and an earsplitting boom. Jedite sighed, and then a thought crossed his mind. Why even bother killing them directly? Why not drive on of the many thousands of soldiers to do it? Or better yet, rape them until they go insane, and hand them over to him to be used as he pleased? Jedite grinned at the thought of using the scouts as sex slaves, and with this in mind, began to plan.....

Xxxxxxxxxx

"For a commanding officer, you sure are lazy. Now get up."

Richard grumbled and buried his head under the pillow in his hammock, which he preferred over a ordinary bunk or his bed in his rarely used cabin. A moment later three pairs of hands grabbed him and, flipping the hammock, unceremoniously dropped him on the floor. He flipped himself on to his back, and saw that Lita, Amara, and Ganymede had dumped him out of bed. The other two officers in the immediate area chucked and then went back to their game of cards.

Richard got up, his chest bare and revealing countless scars and the seam where his tanned skin and toughened muscle ended and the prosthetic right arm began. He was wearing black shorts that ended slightly below the knee, and his dog tags clinked against the ruby which was Solaris' home. He shot a sour look at the trio before saying, "I'm up damnit. You don't have to throw me all over the place."

Amara smiled slightly. "You were the one who cam up with this harebrained scheme for getting the crystals. So get dressed and packed. One of the Andromedan stealth corvette captains has agreed to take us to the planet. We board in three hours."

Richard had opened up the storage crate under his hammock, and had dug out another one of his sarcastic shirts, this one saying, "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Lita sighed before heading to the mess hall to stock up on food for the trip. Amara and Ganymede stayed, mainly because they knew just how many guns and explosives Richard was going to haul along, and they knew he wouldn't be able to haul it all.

While the captain was digging around in his bunk storage area for his service pistol and favorite shotgun, along with a holster for both, Ganymede saw a large, silver colored laptop, encrusted with extra electronics and even a miniature fusion reactor to provided almost unlimited power. He tugged it out and hit the power switch, but nothing happened. Richard coughed and flipped another switch on the reactor pod, causing it to glow bright blue. Ganymede hit the power switch again, and the computer booted up to a command prompt, something which was 'somewhat' (Authors note: he runs Slackware through the command line.) outmoded. Richard leaned over and typed in a series of commands. A moment later, techno music began to blast out of the two tiny speakers built into it. Almost like clockwork, the two other officers began to bob their heads to the beat. Ganymede and Amara looked at each other and groaned. It was going to be a long day.

Xxxxxxxxxx

About ten minutes later they were in the weapons bay packing duffel bags with essential tools and other items, such as scopes and silencers. Amara was watching the captain stuff gun after gun into a duffel bag, yet it never seemed to fill up. He shook the bag to settle the weapons, and the tell-tale clank of at least 3 dozen weapons was heard. He rounded the whole thing off by dropping a tri-barreled rocket launcher and the Flak Cannon into the bag before sealing it up and throwing it at Ganymede, who staggered under the force of the impact. He hefted the bag and noted just how light it was, despite being loaded with dozens of guns. A moment later, Ganymede got nailed squarely in the head by another duffel, this one loaded with literally millions of rounds of ammo and two hundred kilos of C-4 (450lbs).

Amara's eyes were wide. "How are you able to do that?" she asked.

"Z-Space dimensional compression. Each bag is manufactured in a highly compressed Z-space field, where in the field, anything that is made in it acts like normal. But once the bag is out of the field, the compression remains, thus allowing more matter per unit of space. Its not an easy thing to pull off, and the process is ridiculously expensive, so dont lose them!"

Ganymede got up and picked his bag up. "How expensive are we talking?"

The captain motioned for him to go to the explosives locker, and while doing so he said, "I could refit this entire ship with all new equipment for the cost of one of those bags. Ten of those bags would buy a whole new battlegroup or a small moon. Needless to say, they have a huge value on them on the galactic black market, which is why only me and the officers even know they are onboard, and only 3 officers have access to them, me, the Fleet Admiral (also me for now), and the Vice Admiral."

Ganymede walked over to the heavy demolition locker, and after fighting with Mack, opened it. Inside were thousands of warheads ranging from small ten pound anti-infantry mines useful for taking out troops and light vehicles to fifty gigaton antimatter nukes, used for eradicating entire space battles or cracking planets wide open. And at the very end of the room, there was a dozen or so huge warheads. Each warhead stood almost twenty-five feet high, and was a good thirty feet in circumference. On one was the word NOVA.

Ganymede looked at them and took several steps back in awe. They were Novas, the superbombs of the Solar Fleet. Richard had said one of these is powerful enough to sterilize a solar system, and they were often used to trigger stellar explosions. He put his hand on one of the bombs and noted that despite the extreme chill of the room, the bombs casings were warm.

"No we are not bringing one of those with us."

Ganymede swore and spun to see Richard leaning against one of the smaller conventional bombs. Richard lifted the warhead he was leaning against and crammed it into a larger duffel bag before moving on to grab a large crate of grenades. He dumped the grenades out onto the floor and began to pick up the frag and sticky grenades. Ganymede paused and then asked, "Whats with all the firepower?"

"I'm expecting a rough trip once we get dropped off at the planet core. I like to be prepared. Besides, your older sister Europa seems to have developed a taste for explosives. Im bringing all of this because I'm curious just how good she is at blowing shit up."

Ganymede grinned and was about to respond when Amara walked in, stepped on a grenade, and ended up face first on the deck. Ganymede looked at the captain, who said, "I think I shoulda just dumped in the whole crate." Amara shot a poisonous look at the captain before getting up off of the floor.

Richard sealed the last duffel bag and slung two over his shoulders. Ganymede grabbed the one with the guns in it, leaving Amara with the ammo. As they walked out of the armory, the ship twitched beneath their feet. A twitch in a four billion ton vessel meant trouble. Richard looked at the ceiling. "Shit, those buggers just dont know when to give up do they?"

An explosion caused the whole ship to flex and groan with the stress. Richard opened the duffel on Ganymede's back and pulled out the rocket launcher. Amara pulled out a shock rifle, and then slotted an orange shock core onto the receiver. Ganymede hefted the Flak Cannon and loaded the clip with shells, while the captain pulled out a trio of rocket packs and clipped them to his belt. Another explosion rocked the vessel, and klaxons began blaring. The captain looked down the passageway and roared, "_GOD DAMNIT LEAVE MY SHIP ALONE!!!!"_ He tore down the passageway, with Ganymede and Amara in pursuit. When they got to the cargo bay where they were supposed to be picked up, they saw an enemy dropship, angular and looking like a giant 3-prong tuning fork, disgorging djinn, foliots and a large number of imps into the cargo bay

The group of demons glanced around, noticed the trio near the open hatch, and roared for their blood. Seconds later, one of the demons was a smoking pile of ash and the others were scattering under the hail of rockets, shrapnel, and the shock beam. A cluster of rockets, resulting from a fully loaded barrel, homed in on a particularly burly djinn, which dodged around the corner to avoid them. They screamed around the corner, slammed into the demon's chest, and blew it back to hell in a ball of blue flame.

Whatever the shock beam hit, it was instantly blown apart as the anti-photon beam ripped into them. Ganymede's flak cannon ran out of ammo, and he tugged another ten-pack of shells out of Amara's bag and kept on shooting. After thirty seconds of slaughter, the bay was empty of demons except for one, cowering on top of a crate. All three humans leveled their guns at it, and the captain snarled, "Tell me who started the party, and I'll think about sparing your ass."

The imp yelped as a near miss from a rocket blew a small crater in the wall and began to babble.

"The great and powerful Master Jedite has heard that you are attempting to assemble something called the Crystal of Life. We were sent to attempt to stop you."

Richard glanced at the other two. "What do you think? Should I shove a rocket down his throat or nail him with a sticky grenade?"

Amara dug a plasma grenade out of her duffel and tossed it to the captain, who primed it and held it three inches in front of the imp's face. The grenade glowed a pale blue, and the imp squealed and jabbered some more.

"Rumors are going around among my brethren that the mighty demi-god Raiju has been summoned to kill the Scouts and capture one who is called the 'captain'. Who is this captain by the way?"

"The captain is me, dumbass." Richard spun the still primed grenade on one finger before asking, "Who is this Raiju? And who gave you the info you little twerp?"

The imp keened in fear of the grenade. "The demi-god Raiju is a most fearsome and powerful spirit. He wields the power of lightning and thunder. Ah me and my lesser kin fear him! As for your second question, I cannot answer it. Part of the orders given to me."

All three knew this was about as much info they were going to get out of the demon, and Richard did the imp a favor by planting the grenade firmly between its eyes. The imp bolted, trying to shake the grenade off and failing spectacularly. The grenade detonated, lighting off a dozen fuel pods and causing a chain of explosions to go up the wall as the pods' contents burned.

Another dropship pulled in, covered in scorch marks from the battle outside and Korlan jumped off, a large rifle in his hands. The three in the bay got on and found Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto waiting, all looking like they just fought one hell of a fight. The dropship spun around in the docking bay, rocking as another fuel pod detonated in a ball of flames. The bulky craft shot like a bullet out of the cargo bay, just as the fresh shipment of high explosives went off, blowing out that section of the _Phoenix _and knocking the dropship around a little. A cluster of enemy singleship fighters blew by, the vast majority on fire and being chased by a squadron of Lightningstrike and older Thunderstrike fighters. The remains of a small stealth NegaShip were scattered all over the place, with the most intact piece buried in the trench under 150 feet of water, victim of a well placed MAC shell from a now parked frigate on the other side of the city.

Barely ten minutes after the skirmish had begun, the last of the enemy fighters went down in flames to explode in the wasteland which was the southern end of the city. Darien nodded with approval. Despite their presence on the outskirts of the city and the massive drain on resources such as food and electricity, the ships did an decent job of keeping the city safe. As he watched, a bolt of energy raced up the side of the palace and split about 3000 feet above it, and soon there was a huge, translucent dome covering the entire city. The forcefield shimmered for a few minutes, and then collapsed as the generator powering it overloaded.

The dropship came to a rough landing outside a smaller Andromedan ship, not like its big brothers parked in orbit. Instead of a sea creature based design, it was highly angular, and painted black. 4 bulky engines were visible out the back, and the whole thing looked somewhat sinister. The side hatch was open and the small crew was lounging around or moving the crates of supplies needed for the two week journey to the planet on to the ship, since the small vessel lacked a Dimensional drive. Richard looked at the carnage and asked, "Who blew up the stealth ship?"

The corvette's captain nodded to the frigate, which was now getting its power cables hooked up. "We did it. None of your ships were in position to blast it, and besides, that particular frigate over there has a reputation of sniping any target it desires. We used it to pop the Negatrash before they got in range of their own weapons."

The captain got a thoughtful look on his face before saying, "Well the only gun we got that could do the same thing on the Galaxy-class cruisers is the Eclipse Cannon, and that gun needs an impressive amount of power to fire. But we need to stop jabbering and need to get our asses moving." He turned to the dropship pilot. "Go get the other scouts and get them here ASAP. We leave earth in half an hour."

And sure enough, half an hour later the small stealth vessel was climbing into orbit, with almost all of the Scouts onboard. The queen and Mars had opted out on this one mainly because there was Crystal Tokyo to help defend, and two grounded fleets to repair and resupply. It would have been a bad thing for all of them to be gone and the Negaverse launched an all out assault on the city, or worse, the entire planet.


	14. Episode 5 Part 2: Trip through Hell

Sailor Moon Chronicles

A fanfic by Captiosus

-Episode 5 Part 2-

I thought I might want to mention the reason why I am splitting every chapter up into chunks. For one, its redundancy. If one huge file goes corrupt, I have to rewrite it from scratch. But if one small file goes corrupt its a lot easier to rewrite it. Also, it allows me to change the length of the chapters by adding or removing a part. This Episode will be an example, where its 4 parts long instead of just 3. It also makes life easier for you readers, since you can take a break from reading more often without worry about losing your place. At least thats the whole idea. Next part should be up in a week, and the final part of this section a week after that.

* * *

The diminutive ship coasted through the dark, silently slipping through a sea of nothingness. It was cloaked, something to be expected from a stealth vessel. What is also to be expected from a stealth vessel is for it to do this through the middle of an enemy battlegroup, like now.

"I dont like the looks of this..." Sailor Venus muttered. For the last four hours, the tiny vessel has slowly passed through the cluster of NegaShips, apparently awaiting orders to attempt another attack on Earth. The commander of the small ship spun his seat around to face Venus.

"Get used to it," he pulled out a large cigar and lit it in defiance of Andromedan fleet regulations of having combustible material on the command deck of any vessel. "We're going to have to play chicken for the next," he consulted his watch, "Eight hours. Passive sensor sweep has detected thousands of NegaShips in the belt, and they seem to be using the entire belt as a place to hide. Cowardly bastards."

Venus snorted and turned to the viewing window, giving the Andromedan commander an ample view of her shape as she turned. He thought, "Damn, she is hot. Maybe I might get lucky..."

His thoughts were interrupted by Richard, the Admiral of the Solar Fleet, and Captain of the Cruiser _Phoenix. _The stealth vessel commander stood up and shouted, "Admiral on Deck!"

Richard rolled his eyes and sighed. He never did like the highest possible command post, but after the death of the last Fleet Admiral, he had no choice but to step up and take control of BOTH the Solar and Andromedan Armadas.

"At ease. Now what is our situation?" Richard walked over to the sensor console and ran another passive scan.

"It is shit," Venus stated flatly. Richard raised his eyebrows, still not taking his eyes off of the scan console. "Yeah I can sort of see that, Venus. Now, Uranus and Saturn said they needed help getting the weapon packs squared away, and they told me to let you know."

Venus walked off of the bridge, and Richard noticed he commander's eyes following her as she walked out. He turned back to the sensors and said, "Don't even try it, Commander. She will kick your ass if you try to go after her."

The commander laughed. "Oh and how would you know? You try it?"

Richard spun around and drew his sword so fast the shuttle commander never saw it happen, only the result: the 4 foot blade digging into his neck and drawing blood.

"Its not my job to date them, only to protect them you little scumbag. If you _do_ try it I swear I will toss you out the airlock, or better yet, incinerate you," Richard snarled.

The short commander put his hands up in surrender."Okay okay you dont have to kill me. I was just saying..." He yelped as the blade dug deeper. Richard glared at the commander with enough force to penetrate Tarydium battle plate, and the smaller man quailed under the intensity of the glare.

After a few seconds of this, Richard withdrew his blade and walked off of the bridge, leaving the commander to patch the shallow cut in his neck. He sighed, but the thought of him having sex with one of the scouts was just too tempting, and his pants began to strain. The commander looked at his boner and said, "Damn it I need to retire and get laid."

Xxxxxxxxxx

Mars had been left to direct the repair and resupply of the fleets, and she was grouchy when an orderly charged in and began to tell Mars about the massing NegaShips. As she listened, she knew the Negaverse was never going to give up until Earth had fallen. The orderly also mentioned that Richard had ordered thirty-five Novas to be placed at strategic positions on Earth's surface. Mars turned pale as the positions were outlined. 4 bombs in North America, another 4 in South America, 5 in Africa, 3 in Europe, 11 in Asia, and the remainder scattered throughout the oceans.

The new holo pad on her desk flared to life, and Mack popped into existence. The AI glanced around to make sure no one was watching or listening before asking, "You hear about the bombs?"

Mars rubbed her temples. "What is he thinking? Why take the most powerful bombs he has and set them on the one planet he has sworn to protect?"

Mack paused as he got fresh telemetry from the network of probes in solar orbit. "Take a look at this."

His holographic representation vanished, to be replaced by an image of Earth an inch across, with icons representing the vessels in orbit... and the six Novas in orbit alongside them.

"Jesus Christ, he intends to annihilate the whole planet should it fall," Mars muttered. She opened a com channel to Serena only to have it squelched by Mack. The AI returned to his pad and said, "The queen has already been informed of the bombs, but she hasn't been informed of their purpose in the next brawl." He paused again. "Allow the fleet to demonstrate."

The holographic Earth returned, and a massive cluster of purple triangles near the lunar Lagrange point indicated a fresh assault wave.

"How many ships?" Mars asked

"Mmmm maybe a couple thousand. Nothing like the last space battle we had. I think they are just keeping us busy while they try to concoct a new plan to get screwed over by us. Watch."

One of the smaller Andromedan vessels had grabbed a Nova, whose symbol began to pulse red, indicating it was armed. The small vessel accelerated towards the battlegroup and jettisoned the bomb before pulling away to rejoin the Andromedan cluster in orbit. A Galaxy class ship started the transformation sequence to begin charging its Eclipse Cannon, and a moment later a bright green bolt of raw energy hit the Nova as it was passing through the heart of the enemy battlegroup.

The bomb detonated with phenomenal force, flash vaporizing every NegaShip. The shockwave expanded a short distance, then contracted to a razor line beam of power, pulled along the original shot that triggered it. A Z-Space portal opened almost a million miles outside lunar orbit, and the beam roared into the open maw of the portal. Another explosion went off, this one near the asteroid belt, quickly followed by 1,064,927 more explosions as the NegaFleet in the asteroid belt was destroyed in a chain reaction of self destruction.

Mars watched this with awe. The bombs had been modified to directionalize their blasts when triggered by an Eclipse Cannon shot, changing them from planet killers to fleet annihilators. It would come in handy later.

Mack re-appeared over the pad. "Do you understand now?"

Mars nodded, but then said, "I dont like it. Its too risky, and there is the chance using one of those things will end badly."

Mack sighed. "The captain doesnt think like you or me. I know, its weird, but he has always done things his way, for better or for worse. Sometimes for worse, and very rarely for the absolute worst of the worst. Dont ask, I will not tell you. Lets just put it this way, if it wasnt for the fact he was immortal and had the fleet to back him up, he would be dead or imprisoned for some of the things he has done. And a warning to you now: if you greatly anger him, nothing in this world or the next will save you from his wrath. Centuries of war has twisted him to the very core, and although i have yet to witness it myself, i have no doubt he would mercilessly slaughter those he despises." The holo-pad shut down with a pop, leaving Mars there to ponder what horrors the captain might have unleashed, and decided it was probably not a good idea to explore that chain of thought farther.

Xxxxxxxxxx

The Solar Sword's razor edge made the air sing as Richard swung it in a mock fight between him and Ganymede, Io, and Saturn. Saturn took a swipe at Richard's head with the Silence Glaive, and he ducked to avoid the weapon. He retaliated by hacking away at the staff weapon, putting Saturn on the defensive. Io and Ganymede jumped and swung their weapons at Richard's back, only to hit air as he did an ugly roll to the side. Richard jumped up and swung with all his strength at Io's neck. Io didn't get his stone knives up in time, and the Solar Sword bit into his neck. The blade didn't make it deep though, clattering off the impenetrable Tarydium armor now impregnated into Io's skin and skeletal structure. Io's knives, however, were in position to take a jab at Richard's groin, and they slid through the joint between his inner thigh and groin plate to nail him. He howled in agony and growled, "If that had been permanent I would have been VERY upset."

He was silenced a moment later by the Ice Sword digging into his spine and breaking off. Richard collapsed to the deck before shouting, "Enough! That is enough for today."

The others cheered at the captain's humiliation. He might have been the most powerful being when it came to raw power even in his reduced state, but when it comes to swordplay, it if he was outnumbered and wasn't paying attention, he could be quickly overwhelmed.

Richard howled as the ice shard embedded in his spine melted and turned into water, running across the deck. Mercury ran over to check the hole in his back and noticed it wasn't healing up like it should. Richard noticed that she had paused and grunted, "What, a chunk of the ice in there still?"

Mercury mentally flashed him an image of the hole, and at the same time, a surge of emotion and memory blew through the link. Richard acted like the extra information passing through the link didnt exist and grimaced. "Ow. It looks a lot worse than it feels. But why isn't it sealing itself up?"

Saturn peered at the hole as blood oozed slowly out of it. She touched the edges and the captain jumped, biting back a cry of pain, mainly because the edges of the hole were so raw from the ice. His body wasn't the most conductive thing to ice and water, and both at the same time made his flesh extremely sensitive to pain. A moment later and after a few muttered words, Saturn had sealed the hole and repaired the damage to the muscle underneath. Richard flexed his back and was pleased to see that the damage was not permanent, nor affecting his ability to move. A brief but intense burst of pain hit like a slegehammer, and he dropped to one knee as the pain flashed like fire throughout him. Saturn grabbed him to keep him from falling over, and after a moment, it was as if the pain was never there. Richard shook his head to clear it, stood up and, after thanking Saturn, went to the mess hall to pig out on more food. Sparring always had a habit of making him hungry, and now was no exception. But he couldn't help but think about why the hole in his back wouldn't automatically heal, and about the burst of thoughts that has passed between him and Mercury...

He shook himself out of his thoughts and focused on the upcoming task: Retrieving the Thunder Stone. The stone was bound to be heavily guarded, and he needed to keep his skills as a warrior fresh for when the time was needed, as well as regenerating the massive amount of raw energy lost in the massive explosion he set off several months previously. A quick check of his energy reserves revealed he was at around twenty percent his max theoretical capacity, but it refused to recharge any higher. "Thats odd..." He thought, "It should be triple that, and I should have more than enough for my higher end attacks and defenses."

Solaris' crystal flared as he spoke. "When i was appointed your guardian, i had 'rewired' your powers so they would focus themselves though this crystal. The main advantage of that is i can amplify your attacks to many times their normal strength. Problem with doing that is your energy capacity is now limited by the crystal itself, and until it is repaired in full you will not be seeing your full strength.

Richard pulled the stone out and examined it. Running the length of it was a large crack, and the stone dimly glowed. "Well, guess someone higher up doesnt like me that much."

As he passed into the mess hall, a whisper made him snap his head to the right. He saw nothing, but when he turned his head back to the direction he was going, there was the shuttle commander, fury covering his face and a big bucket of liquid nitrogen in his hands. Richard began to draw his sword, but the wound in his back exploded in pain, and he had just enough time to see all thirty gallons of nitrogen drench him. He managed to flash a single, garbled message to Pluto saying that the commander has just frozen him solid with liquid nitrogen. The the freezing was complete, and he became a human icicle. The commander drew his service pistol and checked the chamber for a loaded round, and let the slide snap back into position when he found what he needed inside. As he did so, the commander said, " I dont give a shit whether you are their protectors or not, but its been months since we last got laid, and I cant wait a moment longer. You just keep getting in my way, so now enjoy your fate."

The bullet shattered the frozen captain into thousands of shards. The gravity failed a moment later, and the shards began to bounce around in the zero G. Silence fell, and then a few moments later all of the female Scouts screamed, for they had been pinned in the zero G and were being gagged and bound. Io, Ganymede, and Darien hear this and rushed to help them only to find that they were entirely gone. They both went looking for them on the vessel and made the gruesome discovery of Richard's remains floating around the mess hall. They found the control to restore gravity and set what was left of him on a low power burner to thaw him out.

As they waited, Solaris popped out of his crystal and tried to help, but the bloody pile of remains was too far gone for him to repair, especially with all the energy previously stored there dispersed from the captain getting blown apart.

Another scream prompted the men to abandon the captain and try to hunt the Scouts and the Andromedan crew down.

When they got to engineering, they found a simple object floating in the air: a square. As they watched, the square morphed into a cube, and then a weird object, which was almost like a cube within a cube, both cubes connected to each other by a line at each corner, with eight cells total.

"What is it?" Io asked. The figure began to shift and spin, changing its geometry with every twist and turn.

Ganymede paused and then his face lit up. "Its a tesseract!"

Darien looked confused. "Come again?"

"Its a tesseract, a hypercube in layman's terms. Its four-dimensional cube!"

Another scream echoed around the room, the floating tesseract being the source.

"Well I see no choice but to somehow get inside and get them out."

Io walked up to the twirling hypercube and touched one of its constituent lines. Ganymede ran forward, saying "Dont touch it jus..". As soon as Io's hand made contact, the hypercube expanded and engulfed all three of them before returning to its original size, swirling... swirling...

Xxxxxxxxxx

Richard's skull had finally managed to thaw itself out on the burner, and his shattered and beaten mind began to piece itself back together. After a few moments, he realized what had happened and tried to get out of the bowl that was on the burner. He managed to make it halfway up the sides, but slid back down to the bottom. After several tries, he snapped his jaw and mentally roared, "_A little help would be appreciated if IT ISNT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!!!"_

Solaris' crystal home flared, and the familiar red ring of light appeared above it. "What? Who's there?"

"Its me you lazy bastard! Get my head out of the bowl so I can piece myself back together."

Solaris contemplated the situation, and then just started laughing.

"Get me OUT DAMNIT!"

But this just prompted Solaris to laugh harder.

Richard's head rammed the edge of the bowl in a attempt to get out, and was rewarded by the bowl going sailing through the low G before crashing against the wall. Richard's head bounced out with a wet splat and rolled around before coming to a stop. Richard's now thawed body slowly but surely began to piece itself back together, and soon his head was back on top of his neck where it belonged.

Richard grabbed Solaris' crystal and ran for engineering, knowing that he had maybe thirty seconds to stop the Andromedan crew before it was too late.

As he burst into engineering he saw the floating tesseract and knew that the Andromedans weren't the pushovers he used to know them as anymore. He ran up to the cube, and jumped into its swirling embrace. Once more, the hypercube expanded, engulfed him, and sent him to a twisted dimension that made hell look tame.


End file.
